"I'll explain again. As soon as any part of my body is cut off, or even chopped in two, you must immediately, on my signal, climb out of the seals in my body, starting immediately to tie and pull on each other to make me whole again", As Orochimaru spoke, explaining to the hundred or so snakes what they should do in this or that situation.
"Do we have to be in you the whole time?", Asked the old boa, which because of its size towered over the other snakes.
"And will you give a mouse for it?", Asked a small viper nearby, excitedly wriggling from side to side.
"And a rabbit? Will you give a rabbit?"
"Can the two-legged one be eaten for it later?"
These, and a hundred other questions on similar subjects poured in on Orochimaru, causing him to even twitch his right eye a little.
"This is going to be harder than I thought. A lot harder."
"This is the Hogwarts Express?", Asked Orochimaru, scrutinizing the smoke-smoking red steam train that was rapidly approaching the platform. "Compared to the civilian trains, not impressive."
Orochimaru had spent the weeks leading up to Hogwarts almost in rush mode. He'd spent the entire time reading, trying to learn as much useful information as he could during those three weeks. Not only that, he also had to spend all this time in the company of hundreds of semi-intelligent snakes, diligently training and preparing them for possible battles, hundreds and hundreds of times repeating various techniques, so that at the fatal moment did not happen any misfire.
"Even with all this training, they are nowhere near as effective as the summoning snakes", Lamented Orochimaru, increasingly regretting his lack of summoning. "Compared to the snakes from the Ryuchi cave, they're incredibly slow, like slugs from the Shikkotsu forest."
All this he had to do in caves hastily dug in a day, which were not even a fraction as large and spacious as his previous dungeon, which he had spent an entire year of his precious time building and furnishing.
"You will pay for it yet...", Orochimaru kept thinking, clenching his fists angrily. "Five hundred galleons won't get you off my back..."
But he had to break away from his thoughts, as the train had already arrived, starting to honk and the small throngs of children and teenagers with trunks on their backs, began to swarm onto the train, trying to get a good seat beforehand.
Orochimaru also didn't hesitate, and ignoring the looks, with a calm but swift step, headed towards the nearest entrance to the back carriages, since the least number of students had entered there so far.
"No lock", Orochimaru remarked, pulling his wand from the seal on his right hand.
"Now was the time to finally put the local ninjutsu to the test", He said in a thoughtful tone, pointing his wand at the door slot, making precise, calibrated movements. - Coloportus.
At the same time, Orochimaru could feel how, with each movement he made, small bundles of natural energy began to rush out of his core without affecting the chakro-channels, beginning to absorb immediately into his wand through the hilt. With the last movement, the entire charge of natural energy, which mixed with the wand's life energy, flew in a transparent beam toward the door slit.
At the same second, the iron plates on the lacquered wooden doors began to solder rapidly, binding the compartment doors together tightly.
"A spell with an element of transfiguration," he thought at once, remembering the contents of one of his textbooks. "How it works escapes my comprehension. It may be similar to the techniques of the Ryuccido Cave, but it's not them..."
As Orochimaru thoughtfully twirled the wooden lacquered instrument that the locals used to call a "magic wand" in his hands, he began to think hard about spells, wands, potions, and magic in general. For him, these are all new and unfamiliar concepts that he has yet to get to grips with.
With these thoughts, Orochimaru didn't notice how twenty minutes passed and the train finally began to move.
Suddenly there was a knock on the other side of the door, followed by a futile attempt to open the spell-locked door.
Orochimaru didn't react to the intruder's attempts, but pulled out a fifth-year book from another scroll and began to diligently absorb it.
Suddenly the door to the compartment opened, causing Orochimaru to turn his attention away from his literature.
"Did you know that compartment doors are not allowed to be locked?", Asked a young girl with purple hair that looked irritably in Orochimaru's direction.
"Anko?", Asked Orochimaru, looking at the eerily familiar face.
"Who?", The girl, whose hair suddenly turned a swampy color, asked in surprise.
"Not Anko," Orochimaru realized, watching the incomprehensible phenomenon.
"Freshman?" She was surprised to see his robe with no distinguishing marks. "You don't know it's a semester car, do you? You're Harry Potter!". She suddenly exclaimed, staring into his serpentine pupils.
"I prefer to be called Orochimaru." Said he, opening his book again. "Now get out of my compartment." Patiently he said. "And how will they recognize me? I've already healed that damn scar!"
The girl paid no attention to the still-only request from Orochimaru, and sat down at ease across from him, remembering to close the doors behind her.
"You too, right?", She asked, pointing to Orochi's eyes.
The unexpected question only irritated Orochimaru even more, and he was about to threaten the insolent girl with his murderous lust, but the sudden change of hair color, as well as the color of his eyes to brown, managed to attract his attention.
"It's definitely not a henge, is it?", Orochimaru thought. "Too it?", He asked in a feigned disinterested tone.
"It's...", She hesitated. "Metamorph." She answered, exhaling, suddenly turning the color of her skin blue.
"Can you explain?", He asked right away, without jumping to conclusions.
"It's just that, ever since I saw your face in the paper," she said, beginning to rummage through the purse she was cloaked in, "I remembered my mother telling me that you were a relative of mine on my grandmother's side. So I thought you could change your appearance at will, too."
"Can you transform your body one more time?", He asked, opening a tenketsu at his core.
She complied without objection, suddenly transforming her face into that of Orochimaru.
"Interesting," he thought, staring at his reflection, "I've sent three pulses of chakra already, but there's no change. So it's not an illusion..."
"Because of my metamorphosis, when I couldn't control my transformations, it was incredibly difficult for me in my first year. So I thought that while I hadn't graduated from Hogwarts, I might as well help my brother in need", She smiled a little bit.
"No, I can't do that", Immediately Orochimaru replied, sinking back into his book, seemingly losing interest in the conversation. "How limited is this transformation? Will I, with it, be able to transplant other people's genes to myself without transplanting into other bodies? And the sharingan? Will I finally be able to have one?" Dozens of similar questions raced through his head, making his eyes, hidden behind a book, sparkle with a predatory glint. "But I don't mind talking about it at any time."
"Sadly" she sighed, pulling her face back, "I thought I could finally be friends with someone with the same problem I have. My mom used to tell me that the Blacks' metamorphism was only passed down through the female line, but I hoped until last..."
"By the way, can you show me the paper?", Orochimaru asked, holding out his hand.
"Haven't you seen it?", She was surprised, handing him a rather old correspondence.
When he unfolded it, he immediately noticed his large moving half-page photo, which showed him in all his glory, releasing the Suiton technique at his feet.
"And how on earth did the cameraman manage to get that on film?", He marveled. "Daily Prophet," Orochimaru read the title of the paper. "The Boy Who Lived Almost Killed All the Visitors to the Leaky Cauldron?"
A rather large full-page article that was filled with all sorts of embellishments and emitters was devoted solely to Orochimaru, his 'feat' and, expectedly, a detailed description of his appearance.
This entire article could be reduced to two sentences: "Harry Potter still produces magical emissions," and "The Dark Lord left behind more than just a scar."
"They thought my transformation was a byproduct of that very 'unreflectable' curse." He realized. "I'm better for now."
"Yeah, that would have been nice." Cheering up a little, she said. "But what about you? It says in the paper that your eyes have become like a snake's because of the Dark Lord's curse. Is that true?"
"I'm just as I remembered myself", Briefly he threw in, followed by a question:
"Do you have any limits to your transformation?"
She started happily, as if expecting such a question:
"Well, I can change my head, as well."
But her explanation was interrupted by the sound of the door opening sharply, behind which stood three more intruders.
"I heard that...", The white-haired boy started in a Hyuga-like manner, but his monologue was interrupted by a loud whistling sound, after which he must have started to feel a burning sensation on his right cheek.
After the boy put his hand to his cheek and found it, a slow stream of blood began to flow from his cheek, causing an expression of utter horror to creep onto his face.
"A-a-a-ah!", In a thin voice he shouted, immediately tearing away from the aisle into the compartment.
The other two tall kids, briefly frozen, just as snapped into a run, following their leader.
When Orochimaru saw that the troublemakers had finally left him, he made a sharp pulling gesture with his hand, into which, in the same instant, flew a small knife, the size of a grown man's palm.
Tucking it into the right sleeve of his robe (actually tattooed in a special, unequipped seal) Orochimaru drew his wand, the name of which he had yet to get used to, from the same seal, and locked his compartment door with the same spell.
"So, what were you saying?", He asked innocently, glancing at the dazed girl.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," McGonagall began in a solemn tone. "The banquet to celebrate the beginning of the school year will begin soon, but before you sit down at your tables you will be assigned to your faculties. Selection..."
But Orochimaru didn't listen any further, as he preferred the rather boring speech to admiring the decorations of the castle where he would be studying for quite a long time.
"Well, how long..." Thought the man. "If I don't manage to find my way home soon, while figuring out a way in which I can move into this world at any time, of course..."
Just a month ago, Orochimaru couldn't even think of wanting to linger in this world for even one more day. But the sudden discovery of the magical community that had been hiding under his nose the whole time seriously changed his plans.
"But I must admit that the local technological advances among the civilians did manage to surprise me. Though they lag behind Konoha in some respects, they are unmatched in terms of transport!" Excitedly he thought. "What about the internet? All the knowledge of the world without leaving home! I wouldn't mind losing an arm like that again! But only one. What a pity that I could not run a telephone cable to my dungeon..."
In all this thinking, Orochimaru managed to miss the moment when Minerva McGonagall led them into the cramped room, leaving them alone.
"But in any case, the technology of this world is not enough to make me wish to stay here any longer. I have never forgotten my true purpose: to learn every ninjutsu!" He laughed to himself. "And even though circumstances have forced me to reconsider some methods of achieving that goal, I would never betray myself! And here is a whole community of users of natural energy, that even from school textbooks were able to surprise me with the methods of its use. And that's not even the tip of the iceberg!"
But the sudden startled shouts that erupted around Orochimaru, lurking in the crowd, caused him to wake up from his joyful musings.
He immediately turned his attention to the two flying ghosts that had levitated toward the middle of the room, in Orochi's own opinion having begun to act out some strange scene.
"Speaking of ghosts...", He suddenly remembered. "I've never heard Jiraiya complain about seeing the souls of the dead. And Naruto saw them long before he could learn Sage mode. Another feature of wizard bodies?", Orochimaru pondered.
"Get out of here!", Suddenly Minerva's stern voice rang out, scaring away the two ghosts that had previously been carefully trying to prove something to the crowd of students. "Line up and follow me!"
Though Orochimaru hated it when anyone tried to order him around, in this case he saw no point in pushing his way out of the crowd. So he preferred to pretend that the order was addressed to the other students, and Orochimaru only decided to follow the example of the others.
"Is that Albus Dumbledore?", Orochimaru muttered in shock, staring at the man who sat on a high throne, at the head of the small but still majestic table that towered over the students' desks.
"Yes, that's him. I saw his portrait in the book 'Notable Magical Names of Our Time', which described his exploits!" The brown-haired girl with the unbrushed hair who had been actively explaining something about the magical ceiling, which had been enchanted back in the tenth century by the four wizards who founded Hogwarts, whirled out with a gasp.
And though Orochimaru had wanted to speculate earlier about how powerful and quality genjutsu must be, which had been working for the tenth century and still is, the sudden discovery of the mysterious Hogwarts headmaster's identity made him put all other thoughts to rest.
At first Orochimaru was incredibly angry about the suddenly revealed deception. So much so that some of the students beside him jumped aside in fear, feeling a strong killing intent that, while not directed at them, still managed to affect them due to its high concentration.
But in the next moment he quickly calmed down, suddenly realizing the absurdity of the situation.
"No one fooled me," he suddenly realized, "I fooled myself. When I saw all those big titles, I strongly expected to see someone of Hiruzen's level. That thought was so ingrained in my head that I didn't even think it could be any other way. I didn't even bother to study the recent history books I'd bought, glimpsing only the general history textbook, going straight to studying spells."
And as much as it hurt him to admit it, the only one to blame for this situation was Orochimaru, and only himself.
"But that means..." Suddenly he realized, scrutinizing Dumbledore, and the other man who, along with the director of this establishment, had so brazenly invaded his domain. "And it means that there are more doors opening before me than I thought before..."