"What?" Orochimaru's mind flashed before a crowd of ragamuffins in filthy robes pounced on him from all sides.
Even though they didn't look like trained warriors, Orochimaru had stopped paying attention to the appearance of possible opponents since the academy. And so, not wanting to get into a supposed ambush, Orochimaru folded the two hand seals, and spewed a powerful stream of water under his feet, whose momentum tossed him straight to the ceiling, to which he was immediately glued by his feet.
At the same time, the swirling, circular flow of water swept away all the attackers and the rare visitors, who had been watching the whole time, sitting quietly in their seats.
Only three people who had managed to put up their shields were unaffected by the water machinery: an elderly man with a large bald head who stood behind the bar; a young man in a purple turban who was shaking his wand and looking around nervously, casting stunned glances at him now and then; and Minerva McGonagall, his supposed teacher, and the one who had led him into this unfortunate ambush.
"Harry, what are you doing?!" Shouted McGonagall angrily, who, to the accompaniment of pained groans, tried to use magic to dry up all the remaining water, most of which was slowly dripping down through the cracks in the wooden floorboards.
Looking curiously at the result of his work, Orochimaru could only think:
"Is that all?" He wondered, scrutinizing the defeated opponents for simulation. "Ordinary civilians, then?" He thought, focusing again on the natural background. "No, the swirls are present. Then why did they fallen from such a simple trick? So it's not an ambush?"
"H-Hello, Professor McGonagall." Suddenly the man in the turban who had been silent until then spoke up.
"Oh, Professor Quirell," exhaled Minerva when she finally saw the familiar face, "can you please help clean up? This water is surprisingly bad for a purification spell.
Orochimaru, realizing that he wasn't in any danger yet, took a neat leap down to the ground. He didn't reapply the illusory clone replacement, since there were still fairly large and frequent puddles of water on the floor that could easily expose his technique.
"Can you call in the Healers for now?" Minerva asked the bartender, looking nervously at the customers still lying on the floor.
At these words, about half of the lying wizards suddenly sprang to their feet, and, limping, quickly scattered to their destinations.
The other half of the visitors were still lying on the wet floor, moaning softly in pain.
"So where do we go?" Orochimaru, who had been staring blankly at his surroundings the whole time, asked in a calm voice.
At first Minerva opened her mouth abruptly and wanted to unleash an incredible tirade consisting almost entirely of every swear word and turn of phrase she knew, but she abruptly changed her mind, remembering all of Dumbledore's warnings as well as his communication before she left:
"I swear, Minerva. Whatever he has done, I take full responsibility. Including both material and reputational."
"Tis a good thing I didn't hesitate to take a magical receipt from him." Thought she, checking her inner pocket with a sheet of parchment. "Now I won't have to sort all this out myself."
"Come along, young man." Strictly, but at the same time calmly, McGonagall said as she hurriedly moved toward the passageway into Alley that had already been opened by the other wizards.
"Ku-ku-ku-ku-ku, things are getting interesting..." Thought Orochimaru, moving between the quaint streets of Diagon Alley, ignoring the frequent glances from passersby. "An almost completely demilitarized society of chakra users, (and not just any chakra, but almost entirely natural!) who have adapted it exclusively for peaceful purposes. I swear to Rikudo, I've even seen someone use their power to tie their shoelaces!" Orochi marveled, while at the same time watching someone destroying all the garbage gathered at the doorstep with a simple wave of his wand.
"Dust Releaset? No, definitely not her..." He dismissed it doubtfully. "Maybe they have something in common, but it's definitely not some Kekkei Genkai among the locals." Decided Orochi. "But I should definitely get into the local academy. I can't wait to see what else they were able to create."
"First, we should visit Madame Malkin's sewing store," McGonagall said, casting a skeptical eye over Orochimaru's clothes. "Next, we need to stock up on ingredients for the potions lessons. Then we have to buy our first year textbooks at Florish and Botts bookstore, having bought a storage chest at another shop before doing so. Then..." Minerva paused briefly. "You don't have a wand yet, do you?" Asked the one with a little doubt.
"And I thought it was Yondaime who couldn't give normal names." Mentally Orochimaru grinned. "No." He threw it in short.
Looking over the boy once more with suspicion, Minerva covered her eyes for a moment, and with a sigh reported:
"Then we'll have to visit Ollivander's shop at the end. Well, first of all, we must now visit the Gringgots Bank, where you must withdraw the amount needed for the purchases." She said, pointing her gaze in the direction of a large three-story marble building, on the facade of which, in gold letters, was emblazoned the name of the named bank.
"I wonder if these are beings from the former conscription plan, someone's experiment, or an independent race altogether?" Pondered Orochimaru, examining the rather short, grayish creature with wrinkled skin that sat next to him in the wagon. "Judging by their appearance, and the way that goblin at the entrance wrinkled in the daylight, you'd think they were unfit for life on the surface. Their broad forelegs, and thick mole-like claws, lead me to believe that these creatures almost always lead exclusively underground lives, occasionally making their way to the surface."
After two minutes of rather high-speed travel, the wide iron wagon finally began to slow down, and at the wave of the old goblin's hand, it turned at the next fork, which led neatly to one of the vaults.
"Chakra thread?" Thought Orochimaru as he saw the lone lever on the fork follow the movement of the goblin's hand with a crackling sound.
But Orochimaru didn't have time to develop his thought, for just a second later, they seemed to have finally arrived at their destination, and he had to get off the wagon to the quiet grunts of the gray-skinned runt.
"Safe six hundred and eighty-seven, isn't it?" He thought, looking at the rather imposing, albeit small in height, metal door that seemed capable of withstanding even the onslaught of Kakashi's plasma cutter.
"The lock is right here." Pointed the goblin to a hole in the middle of the door, misunderstanding his escort's procrastination.
Not a second more immediately, Orochimaru immediately began to open the door of the safe, expecting a truly impressive sum behind it.
"Unbelievable," he thought, looking at the glittering piles of gold and silver coins that were strewn almost all over the floor, "how much gold is there?"
"What is the exchange rate of these coins to British pounds sterling?" Orochimaru immediately asked.
"As of today, the value of one galleon is exactly five Muggle pounds sterling.
"And what is the gold content of one such coin?" Asked Orochimaru, tossing in the air a rather light coin for its size, which he picked up from a pile nearest to him.
"All gallions are minted exclusively in pure gold." The man proudly muttered.
Orochimaru immediately stopped tossing the galleon, and froze in surprise for a moment.
"What's the catch?" He thought, scrutinizing the massive gold coin. "Even if you close your eyes to the fact that gold can't be worth that cheap, the question of weight is still open. If it consisted of pure gold, judging by the size of the coin, it must have weighed at least fifty grams, if not more. But it doesn't feel like it weighs more than a gram."
Deciding to check something, Orochimaru, squeezing the coin tightly at his sides with his fingers, began to strengthen his hand with chakra, watching curiously as the golden round began to gradually crumple in diameter, slowly folding in half.
The goblin watched in disbelief, opened and closed his mouth in astonishment, either outrage or shock.
He was in the middle, and when he was about to bend the coin to a right angle, it suddenly burst from the strain, spewing a small cloud of gray smoke.
When the smoke finally cleared, Orochimaru was holding a small copy of the same coin, bent at the same, almost right angle.
"Now I do." Said Orochimaru in a mocking tone, staring at the tiny, fingernail-sized coin.
"If you wanted to ask why galleons are so light relative to their size, you could have asked directly," said the goblin extremely annoyed, "Goblin nation makes no secret of it. Now, you will have to pay a fine of one hundred galleons for defacing our property." With a smirk the man said.
"Really? Isn't that my money?" Orochimaru asked with feigned surprise, pulling his most benevolent smile over his face.
But apparently the goblin misinterpreted it, judging by how quickly that bloodthirsty grin slid off his face.
"Purely legally, any goblin-issued products are considered goblin property, which we lend to people in perpetuity, and there is a fine for any damage to it. But fortunately for your good fortune, for a small tip of ten percent of the amount I said, I am willing not to inform the goblin nation of your offense." He said with a softer expression on his face.
But Orochimaru didn't like those terms either, so he decided to increase his lust for murder a bit, a small portion of which he had previously directed at the goblin.
"F-f-five percent..." The goblin said in a trembling voice, slowly staggering toward the exit of the vault.
But after an even greater increase in the concentration of the killing lust, the goblin's skin turned from grayish to ashy, and he screamed:
"One percent, and not a knut less!"
Orochimaru finally let go of his killing lust, letting the goblin exhale in relief, and with a slight movement of his hand tossed him a bent tiny coin, which he caught with remarkable dexterity with his huge claws.
"It's still a gallion, isn't it?" He innocently inquired.
"How was your first encounter with the goblins, Mr. Orochimaru?" Reluctantly McGonagall asked, walking down the marble stairs with her future student.
"That was... Informative."
"Wonderful," she was slightly relieved, "now we can finally buy you some normal clothes."
"Normal is..." He pointed a finger at the small crowd of people in strange, motley outfits that were streaming into the Hollow Cauldron. "Plush slippers and a raincoat?" He wondered.
"...no."
"Oh, Merlin, how lovely!" The older woman exclaimed, suddenly pouncing on Orochimaru with a folding meter, beginning to hastily take every possible measure from him. "Where did you find such wonderful clothes?"
Orochimaru did not answer the question, but merely waited patiently for the irritating woman to finally finish taking the sizes she needed.
But the woman did not think to take offense at the strange boy's silence, but just continued doing her job with the same smile.
"Not bad at all..." Orochimaru muttered to himself, testing his mobility in the rather voluminous robe. "Very similar to an Akatsuki robe. Except there's no high collar. But that's okay."
McGonagall could only watch in wonder at the strange movements of her most unusual student in her entire teaching career.
"I think in some ways it's even better than the Akatsuki robe. At least it's capable of concealing some movements. But that has to be tested in practice."
"Ready to move on?" She asked a rhetorical question, and without waiting for an answer, she headed for her next destination.
"Did you have to buy so many textbooks?" Minerva asked, watching Orochimaru hide a strange scroll in the sleeve of his new robe.
"I've never seen runes like that before." She thought, remembering the contents of the magic scroll that Orochimaru had recently put all his books in. "It looks a bit like Chinese characters. I'll have to ask Dumbledore about it later."
"As I recall, we'll need to buy some wand of stick at the next shop." Asked Orochimaru, placing the sealing scroll in the seal on his left hand.
"A magic wand," she corrected patiently." It is the most important item in a wizard's life, and most of the time in my classes will be devoted to practicing with it. It is strange not to know such things with your skills.
"What do you know about sealing scrolls?" Unexpectedly, Orochimaru asked the question without taking his eyes off the walk.
McGonagall only looked at the boy strangely, but after some thought only asked:
"Is that the name of that rune scroll?" She asked doubtfully.
"Right," he grinned, "it's strange not to know it. With your skills...
Minerva couldn't find anything to respond to the unexpected taunt from her future pupil, so all she could do was think irritably:
"No offense to James and Lily: so he doesn't end up in my house..."
"Harry Potter?" A gray-haired old man with white, unseeing eyes asked in amazement.
"Hyuga?" Orochimaru strained, gazing diligently into the eyes of the old man across the street, trying to make out the protruding veins in his eyes.
"Hello, Mr. Ollivander." Minerva greeted discreetly, giving a respectful nod.
"Yes, hello, Minerva..." Ollivander procrastinated, stepping away from his careful scrutiny of the long-haired boy. "I wish I could say your eyes looked a lot like his mother's, but..."
"I get." Calmly replied Orochimaru, interrupting the old wand maker.
"Okay, I see you're not in the mood for conversation. Then let's get to my favorite part," he sighed, starting to take measurements from Orochimaru's hands and head.
"Which hand do you conjure with?
"Both." Orochi didn't hesitate, a little misunderstanding of the question.
Rummaging through the huge racks for a bit, Ollivander pulled out one of the long wooden boxes, handing it to Orochimaru.
"Cypress and dragon heart vein. Nine and a half inches. Good for determined personalities, and therefore a bit willful.
"Really?" Orochimaru thought doubtfully, examining the seemingly ordinary piece of wood in his hand. "Sounds like it has a will of its own."
"Don't worry, you can swing it." Ollivander smiled slightly, misinterpreting Orochimaru's hesitation.
Taking it in his hands, Orochimaru tried to wave his wand, but achieved only zero results. But not noticing Ollivander's eagerness to snatch the inappropriate wand from his hands, Orochimaru, without hesitation, repeated the attempt, deciding to feed some of his chakra mixed with natural energy into the wand.
Suddenly, a thick red smoke erupted from the tip of the wand, causing Orochimaru to immediately stop feeding the chakra. But it was too late, because in the next moment there was a rather deep crack all along the wand, so the bitter experience taught Orochimaru immediately threw it away as far as possible, reinforcing his body with more chakra.
But all that was in vain, as the discarded wand did not explode, only splitting into two jagged pieces with a loud crack.
There was an awkward silence in Ollivander's shop for a while.
Hi all! I apologize for the long absence of chapters. In fact, I wrote the new chapter a week ago, but since it takes me two hours to translate one chapter, I kept putting it off. But that's not the point.
I hope you enjoyed the new chapters (and yes, I have a buffer of a few chapters that I'm in no hurry to catch up on). Please leave a comment, as that's what I'm writing for, by and large. Also, I won't forget to remind you that I'm on the lookout for an English-speaking beta, as this isn't the first time I've noticed complaints about word choice in my writing.
I hope you didn't waste your time with my fanfic and that it helped you brighten up your holiday or your long wait. Have a good night or two, everyone. See you all soon!