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He never thought he’d miss Jiraiya.

Rather, there were things about Jiraiya he’d miss, but…on the whole, his former teammate was somewhat understandably unpleasant to be around for any length of time.  Still, the man made up for all of his faults with his natural skills and abilities.  Jiraiya’s sealing genius alone was worth tolerating him to get advice on the subject.  But, to actually miss Jiraiya, the most perverted, annoying, sneaky, clever ninja to walk the earth…he never thought he’d be so desperate for company.

There were, of course, people he could talk to, but…

They were civilians.  He was, for all of his sins, still a shinobi no matter the body he currently inhabited.  There was also the small matter that he simply couldn’ttalk of if he didn’t want to be taken for insane or delusional.  After all this time, even he’d begun to doubt his own memory…

Was the world he remembered…real?

Did Orochimaru, the Legendary Snake Sanin, ever walk the lands of the Elemental Nations?

He remembered each and every sin he had accumulated, each and every crime he had committed in the name of furthering himself, furthering science, and furthering his art.  Each night brought dreams of old blood and deaths that he’d felt so much at first and then less and less with each passing swing of the blade.

Perhaps that was why…

Harry Potter, the eleven year old child was many things, none so important as the fact that he was the apple of his parents’ eye.  Harry was, in his mother’s and father’s words, a handsome, smart, well-tempered, talented, insightful individual.  He was the most perfect child they could conceive of, everything that they could ask for…and, most assuredly, many parents thought that of their children, but Harry…

Harry was obviously special.

That’s not to say the child didn’t have his flaws, of course.

If pressed, Lily would admit her firstborn was…cold, distant, and even somewhat anti-social.  In the beginning, she’d set up many ‘play-dates’ for Harry, all of which had ended in…well, not exactly failure, but Harry had usually just disdained the other children’s interests to the point of retrieving a large dusty tome from what had been Lily’s personal library, or merely playing by himself.

Besides learning to read at what was evidently a very early age, Harry also exhibited several other characteristic of a budding genius, at least in her and James’ opinion.  And, normally, they would worry about such a child becoming trapped in his books, forgetting about the real world outside, but again Harry broke the mold.  He spent a large part of his day playing in the woods behind their home in Godric’s Hollow and, later, when their family grew larger, in the lands around the Potter Manor.

So Harry was a bit…insulated from other people, his parents would argue is someone made a derogatory comment towards their child, it wasn’t as if Harry was lonelyand if the boy just wasn’t particularly personal…well, to each his own.  Honestly, they’d be worried if Harry didn’t show someidiosyncrasies…

And it wasn’t as if Harry didn’t spend all of his time alone.

The youngest Potter was quite partial to his godfather and both his ‘uncles’ Peter and Remus.  Sirius, of course, was the most prone to spoiling the boy on ‘fun’ things such as prank supplies and other such gear that Lily would neverhave approved of.  Remus, as an intelligent person (who was not his mother) and would take him seriously, provided a vital sounding board for the child’s ideas and theories.  Really, Remus had never heard of such a driven child.  And Peter…well, truth be told no one could tell exactly why Harry like Peter, but probably involved the fact that Peter had always been so easy to bully into doing exactly what they wanted.

And it went without saying that Sirius never noticed exactly what combinations of potions ingredients he bought Harry, or the fact that the raw samples themselves were considered lethal poisons in the muggle world.  Remus never realized that he was giving practical advice on spells, wand movements, and magical theory to a child who shouldn’t really know anything about those subjects.  And, of course, Peter was a completely different matter, but sufficed to say…

He’d never been blackmailed by a six year old before.

He was perhaps the only person who saw anything more than what Harry wanted them to see.  Peter, when he looked at Harry, saw a budding student of the dark arts, a child who was far more observant than any other child he’d ever met, and someone who’d managed to find out he had been marked by the Dark Lord, realize what that meant, and then actually usethat information effectively…

So of course Peter was his favorite babysitter.  The man was effectively slaved to his will given that he could reveal that incriminating to his parents at any time.  Any other child might have cringed from using the threat to its full potential, but Harry demanded a slew of things during the first few years of real exploration into the magical world…

Unregistered wands from Knockturn Alley.

Restricted and Prohibited potions supplies.

Illegal and Dark Magical Artifacts.

Spell books for beginner-level Black Magic.

Occulemency and Leglimency instructional texts.

For the more…mundane subject he needed to research, there was always his parents, or at least his mother, who was almost always willing to buy him books.  When he had finished decimating her personal library and later the gigantic repository of literature in the Potter family library, Harry had moved on to request muggle books…which had left his father puzzled and confused, but he supposed his son could have worse hobbies.

Lily ended up becoming a regular at several local second-hand bookstores and University departments to sate her son’s lust for knowledge.  Flourish and Blots had considered her their most valuable customer for the last several years and still there was no end to the subjects Harry considered necessary to consume.  History, Biology, Mathematics, Physics, Languages, Chemistry, Geography, Music…Harry never seemed to get tired of reading.

To any normal child, especially one so young, the hours of mental focus that such intensive reading required, ‘playing’ in the forest, and magical training heaped on top of that would exhaust them utterly.  To Harry Potter, or more exactly, to Orochimaru, such was normal in and of itself.  And besides, the man who was once one of the most feared ninja on the continent had much more grandiose plans than being, as Madara would have put it, a ‘Good Boy.’

And he needed to prove to himself that he hadn’t lost his edge.

If all else failed, it got him away from his siblings, but thankfully, as Harry looked to the calendar, that wouldn’t be an issue much longer.  With a longing sigh, he made sure everything was packed for the Hogwarts Express.  After tomorrow, he wouldn’t have to put up with their incessant, incessant whining.  Honestly, if killing them wouldn’t create a somewhat unnecessary bloodbath…

It absolutely wasn’t because they were his siblings.

Even if the girl sometimes had the most adorable malicious look in her cold, dead eyes.

Harry shook himself mentally and went back to packing.

Hogwarts, One Month Into Term-

Albus Dumbledore was many things, as the myriad titles appended to his name testified.  Still, many failed to realize that his authority was much more prevalent in the British Wizarding World than it even appeared at first

Incunabulum-unbound book/scroll.