"I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you." Ollivander sighed, waving his wand to remove the remains of the broken wand.
"What?" Minerva exclaimed in amazement." But why?! Don't you have the right wand for every wizard?
"I've heard of such a case before." Calmly the old man replied, regretfully putting the halves back in the box. "There are different ways of using magic in the world. And though the wand option is the most popular, it is far from the only one."
"But how does that prevent Harry from using his wand? As far as I know, in some Australian witch enclaves it's still customary to use staffs, but that doesn't stop them from using wand magic in any way!"
"Miss McGonagall," he replied in a lecturing tone, "you're overlooking something. Modern wizards are used to using magic to manifest external miracles, like levitating objects, or transfiguration." He nodded to her. "In the same Asia, in the few enclaves of wizards, there is a practice of abandoning the more traditional forms of magic in favor of bodily development. The same Shaolin wizards can strengthen their bodies to such an extent that they can crush boulders with their fists, and their speed can exceed that of werewolves as much as the speed of a werewolf exceeds that of a human."
"Curious information..." Thought Orochimaru. "I wonder if they use chakra, or just mix their bodily energy with natural energy?"
"But the price of this power is such that those who have embarked on this path are incapable of manifesting any external miracles. And when such wizards pick up a wand, or any other magic trick, it simply breaks down.
"But Harry can use magic!" Minerva objected, "He recently flooded the entire Leaky Cauldron with his ejection!"
"Let me try again." Orochi suddenly spoke up. "Don't worry about any material damage. I'll pay for everything."
"It's not about the money at all, Harry." He sighed. "Each wand has its own will, through which it can choose its wizard. And as their creator, it pains me incredibly to watch them die." He said heavily, covering his face with his hand. "But if Minerva says you are capable of magical feats, then I am willing to give you another chance."
Turning his back to his visitors, Garrick set about looking for another wand, which took him several times longer than before.
"Here it is," he announced, shaking the dust off an unremarkable box. "This is a special wand, Harry." Said Ollivander, taking the wand from the box, with a sweep it released a sheaf of colorful sparks. "A holly and a phoenix feather are a very unusual combination indeed. Holly symbolize incredible courage, bordering on self-sacrifice, and most of their owners become either Aurors or Healers. It pairs very well with the heart vein of a dragon, or the hair of a unicorn, but few people have thought to pair it with the feather of a phoenix. With the feather of the most selfish light magical creature that ever existed."
Solemnly placing it in the hands of Orochimaru, who had been listening to the words of the wandmaker the whole time, Ollivander continued:
"This combination yields truly incredible results. In this conflict is born a great power that can only be wielded by incredible madmen: either the brave, who will do anything for others; or the selfish, who will do anything for their own good." He grinned madly.
Orochimaru didn't hesitate any longer, and so, switching off the senin mode, made a smooth swing of his wand, ready to cast it aside at any moment in case of a malfunction.
But his fears were in vain. For the next moment a small stream of blue sparks erupted from the tip of the wand, which, before reaching the floor, dissolved into the air.
"Curious, really curious..." Ollivander whispered spellbound. "And that's not the only feature of this wand." Ollivander said suddenly, and at the boy's raised eyebrow, replied:
"Normally, a phoenix only gives up one feather in its lifetime, but sometimes it happens that it throws away a couple at once. Well, this is your case." He nodded at the wand. "And it just so happens that it hes the sister of that wand that left you this scar." He pointed a finger at the faintly visible scar that the old man had somehow managed to make out in the semi-darkness.
"It seems every person I meet knows something about me that I don't." He hissed irritably to himself. "I'm sure the Uzumaki boy felt something like that."
"Explain." He frowned, finally deciding to show his annoyance at the whole situation.
"Don't you know?" Ollivander asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "Listen..."
"What the hell was that old man talking about?" Orochimaru thought unhappily, walking out of the shop with a neutral expression on his face. "Obviously, there's no way the boy could have reflected this so-called 'unforgivable spell'. I'd rather believe it was his mother who put some kind of barrier technique on him, and this Voldemort managed to break through it somehow, causing him to pay with herself life, leaving the cursed seal for last."
"Sorry I didn't tell you about it first... Orochimaru." McGonagall sighed, following beside the boy. "I wondered if, despite everything, you might not know about your past, so I wanted to tell you all about it after the shopping trip to the Fortescue Ice Cream."
"I don't like sweets." He stretched out calmly, showing his reluctance to continue the conversation.
"Orochimaru," she sighed wearily, "even though I don't know what you've been through, but listen. I know that the magical world may seem foreign and wrong to you, and for sure, with your popularity, you will face many difficulties, but know this: you are not alone. I, as well as Headmaster Dumbledore, are here to help you. And we're not the only ones. Almost all of the current school staff knew your parents in one way or another, and most treat them with warmth. Especially the head of the Ravenclaw home, Philius Flitwick. So you can approach them on any matter, and I'm sure they'll be happy to help you to the best of their ability.
"I will..." He hummed. "A positive reputation is a good thing. Especially good when you didn't have to lift a finger for it. And that's great, since building a positive reputation isn't on my list of skills."
"I guess that's it for today?"
After these words, a small smile suddenly broke out on McGonagall's face, which she immediately suppressed as she took a small folded piece of paper out of her robe pocket.
"It's not over yet," she said, handing the boy the bundle, "you should visit one more store."
Taking and unfolding it, Orochimaru noticed the gold crest of the Gringgots Bank in the table of contents of the small rectangular sheet, and then sounded off the inscription beneath it:
"Certificate of payment?"
"To its honorable customers, the Gringotts gives them the opportunity to pay for their purchases through such certificates without taking the gold from the vault." She replied. "In this way, the director wants to try to make amends for the inconvenience he has caused you recently. He wants you to spend it to buy one or more familiars from this store. Though the school recommends you bring only an owl, a toad, or a cat, it's not really a strict rule, so some students get more exotic pets as well. But remember," she sternly pointed out, "you are fully responsible for your family pet. So if you buy yourself, for example, a hippogriff, you will have to feed it, take care of it, and also make sure that it won't harm anyone Merlin forbid. And I'm not even talking about the cost of renting a suitable aviary to keep it on Hogwarts territory, because you can't keep it with you for objective reasons. So I strongly advise against buying anyone bigger and more dangerous than a cat, or a small dog."
"I wonder if he's not afraid I'm going to buy up the whole store." He thought, scrutinizing the contents of the certificate. "No, you won't. There's a limit of five hundred gallons on it." He read the warning in the corner.
"Can't I spend it somewhere else?
"Of course," she replied, hiding a small smirk on her face, "but still, Albus thinks you could use a familiar. The same owl would be a great buy, since you can use it to deliver all sorts of letters and parcels. You could buy it with your own money, and keep the certificate to buy more expensive things at another shop.
He only nodded grudgingly at the sudden offer, and at a leisurely pace headed in the direction of a large store with wide showcases, behind which you could see a rather diverse assortment of all possible small animals.
"Hello! Welcome to Salamander's Suitcase, the finest store of magical beasts that was named after the famous magizoologist, the great Newt Salamander!" Shouted the young salesman who had popped up from his seat, who had previously been scrutinizing a magazine of incomprehensible content behind his counter.
"I need an owl," Orochimaru threw in briefly, not giving the salesman even a fleeting glance. "and look around..."
"What kind of owl do you need, exactly? We have quite a wide range in our selection of owls! There are the common magical barns," he pointed to the white owls with a rusty gray coloring on their backs. "There are Flammulated owls," he nodded at a gray owl with sparse red plumage. "There's even one white polar. I highly recommend the latter. Quite rare, one might say, an endangered species. I assure you that her incredible beauty will stand out to all of Hogwarts!"
"Really?" Asked Orochimaru, glancing in the direction of the snow-white owl." Then definitely don't.
"Okay." Nodded the young salesman, pointing to the next bird. "Then, I recommend you..."
But Orochimaru didn't listen to the salesman's rant any longer, as he suddenly heard a quiet, tired hissing that came from the depths of the large store.
"E... Excuse me?" Unsurely the guy asked, following the customer who suddenly walked toward the amphibian section.
"This-s one doesn't s-smell like a biped..." Suddenly Orochimaru heard a hissing voice.
"Maybe it's-s one of thos-se big bipedal birds-s?" Asked a voice that belonged to a large gray python.
"Those only come in females-s!" Objected the band nearby. "And this one smells almost like one of us!"
Orochimaru immediately knew exactly what he was talking about, so he hurried to ask:
"What summon world are you from?
Orochimaru immediately noticed that when he addressed the nearest snake, the movements of his lips suddenly began to not match his speech, but decided to put that aside for later, thinking that it was a feature of communication with the local summons.
"Parselmouth?" Suddenly came from several snakes nearby.
"Where do you want to summon us, parselmouth?" Asked the cobra that had been lying quietly on a branch. "I am ready to follow you wherever you wish!"
The offer was followed by all sorts of approving cheers from all the waking snakes in the store, which made Orochimaru's head ring a little.
"Apparently they don't know what I'm talking about," he realized. "But even though these snakes aren't summons, they have some kind of mind, and they're even somehow able to talk to me. Could this still be the kekkei genkai I thought of earlier?" Thought Orochimaru, looking at the rather flustered salesman who was slowly backing up to the counter.
"I'll take them all." Decided Orochimaru, walking over to the counter where the salesman was hiding behind.
"W-what?" The salesman asked a little stammeringly, staring nervously into Orochimaru's snake eyes.
"I'm telling you that I buy every snake in this store!"
"Really?!" The man asked happily, jumping up from behind the counter. "It's going to cost a great deal. Are you sure you can pay for them?"
Orochimaru silently held out the certificate, which, judging by the seller's sparkling eyes, he immediately recognized.
"A-albus Dumbledore?!" He exclaimed as he read the name on the certificate almost ripped from the boy's hands. "Give me the delivery address, and I'll have all the snakes dispatched at once!"
"There's no need for that," Orochimaru objected, stepping back a little from the salesman and spewing out a rather large scroll with a coughing sound that fell to the ground with a loud thud.
"It took me almost a whole month to make it. Because it's made of regular paper, not chakroconductive, it becomes unusable after the first time it's sealed. I wanted to use it for transporting test subjects," he thought regretfully.
"Open all the aviaries – they won't scatter."
The salesman didn't seem to hear him at all, as he was in a state of shock, staring blankly at the scroll at Orochimaru's feet.
"Shall I repeat it?" Pressed Orochimaru, who was no longer enjoying his amused reactions.
"I-I got it," he exhaled, silently writing out an intricate gesture in the air with his wand, thereby causing all the snake enclosures in the store to open.
Orochimaru immediately unfolded the sealing scroll for living creatures with a light kick, and ordered all the snakes to gather in it.
In the same second, dozens of snakes began to gather in a steady stream inside the seal, carefully nudging each other to make sure they didn't get beyond the boundaries of the scroll.
After making a manual seal of concentration, Orochimaru slammed his palms on the edge of the scroll, causing about a hundred snakes to disappear into the thick smoke, which immediately blended into the large glowing red seal of the hieroglyph in the center.
"And give me that black and white owl by the window, too," he pointed a finger at the nearest owl on a perch, which immediately turned its head toward the boy, as if realizing it was being noticed.
"What a lovely owl!" Smiled McGonagall, who had been waiting patiently a short distance away from the store until then. "Now, let me explain to you how to get to platform nine and three quarters..."
At the same time, a certain Hogwarts headmaster is choking on a sherbet from the sudden notification that four hundred and thirty-five galleons and five sickle have been withdrawn from his account, to purchase one hundred and twenty-three snakes, and one owl.