Chapter 2: – The Beginning

Dan fell to the floor, his back hitting the cold ground. His lungs greedily sucked in short bursts of air, trying to pump more oxygen into his blood. He was still in pain, his head throbbing with every beat of his heart, his muscles coiling like snakes under his skin.

His eyes were wide open, darting from side to side, taking in new information. Trees with thick trunks towered around him, blocking almost all the light from the sun, orange leaves covered the ground like a blanket, but they did nothing to soften his fall. Dan rolled over on his side with difficulty, noticing that there were no bushes on the ground, which didn't surprise him, with such lighting it would be difficult for anything to grow.

Dan looked down at his body and his breath hitched. His clothes were still torn and pulled to the sides, showing the world once pale, smooth skin, now looking more like Wanderer's.

Slowly getting to his feet, Dan leaned against the tree to keep himself from falling over. He was taller than before, but he wasn't sure by how much, there wasn't anything around that he could compare himself to.

His clawed hands now dropped almost to the floor, barely touching the ground, and his legs flexed with suspicious ease. His skin was stretched over his ribs, showing every bone in his body. He was still slightly hunched over in pain, so it wasn't even his full height, but judging by how far the ground was from his view, he was very tall.

"The Wanderer made me look like him?" Dan wanted to say, but only warping sounds escaped his throat. Unlike the Wanderer's voice, his sounded more like rewinding a cassette.

Standing between dozens and hundreds of trees, Dan slowly caught his breath. He heard birds chirping, insects fluttering, leaves rustling. The forest lived its own life and Dan was an outcast here.

"Gods, help me," he vwhooped.

He didn't sit still for long and began to explore the forest around him, drawing a mental map of this place at the same time. But it quickly became clear that his clothes were too small to walk comfortably in. He took off his shorts and T-shirt, remaining completely naked and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his genitals where they should be. After thinking for a moment, he tore the shirt on one side and wrapped it around his waist like a loincloth. His shorts may be needed for something later, so he hung them on his shoulder. All he had were clothes on his back, the rest of his personal belongings were left in the ambulance, so he would preserve whatever he had.

Dan walked in a random direction, looking around and scratching at some trees, leaving marks, trying not to get lost even more. His claws were surprisingly sturdy. Each tree in the forest was similar to another, differing from each other in almost nothing, so he made his own differences.

Along the way, he noticed a couple of things. The first thing that caught his eye was that purple particles were flying around his body under the sunlight. In the shadows, he was almost invisible, but if even a ray of light fell on him, purple lights began to fly around.

He was ready to bet money on something that had already seen it somewhere.

The second was the animals in the forest. He expected to see wolves, foxes and snakes. He did not expect to see traces of unshod hooves. 'Cows? Not in the forest without grass, most likely this is the path that wild horses often take. It would be helpful to know what time period I'm in.'

Dan lifted his gaze from the ground and went to another tree to make another mark, but as soon as he approached it, a strange green mantis-like insect fell on his hand and bit his palm. Well, it tried to bite him, but it's teeth couldn't puncture Dan's skin.

"And what are you?" He raised his hand to his face and took a closer look at the "praying mantis."

The little dude looked like a combination of a young Groot and an ordinary praying mantis. It was a strange creature, moving on three small legs and having huge fingers on its hands. On a tiny head with small black eyes, a formation resembling two leaves flaunts. "I'll leave your tree alone if you stop biting me."

The guy stopped trying to take a bite out of Dan and looked into his eyes. For some reason, this annoyed the not-quite-human a lot, but he chose to ignore the feeling. The mantis stood up on its three legs and nodded slowly. This surprised Dan, even he couldn't understand his speech, but somehow this mantis was able to understand and respond to his words, even if in its own way.

"I suppose you can't tell me where we are?" Dan asked, getting a negative shake of mantis' head. "That's bad. You live here then?" A nod. "Any humans around here?"

The mantis paused to consider his question, but finally nodded. It looked around and pointed to the side where the sun shone brighter.

Dan made an inhuman sound again. "Do you want to come with me, or should I put you back on the tree?"

Instead of answering, the mantis pointed to his shoulder – where his shorts were – and Dan placed it there. Now that he had a guide, Dan felt a little better. He wasn't sure if this creature was magical or simply highly intelligent, but decided not to worry about it right now.

They continued walking in silence, slowly approaching civilization and Dan didn't know what to think.

He only hoped he didn't get shot in the face. Or worse.

The mantis was squeaking something in his ear – or in the place where people usually have ears – pointing to the trees around and Dan nodded intelligently, as if he understood what it was talking about. Gradually, different trees began to appear in their path. Instead of tall sequoias, oaks and willows have begun to replace them, making the forest seem much denser.

Although the sun used to shine brightly, it was already getting dark, letting Dan know exactly where the west was. The little mantis led him towards the northwest.

Dry leaves crunched under his feet with every step. Dan didn't bother to cover his tracks, he didn't think that the animals would hunt him and as far as he could tell, there were no humans in this part of the forest.

Gradually, the sun went completely below the horizon and Mantis – Dan decided that since the dude clearly didn't have a name, he would just call him Mantis – hid in his shorts pocket to sleep. Dan felt stronger than ever, as if the moon itself gave him the energy to move. Even the darkness dispersed before his eyes, making the world as bright as it was in daylight.

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But in the end, Dan stopped. Without Mantis, he couldn't know if he was taking the right path, and the idea of ​​continuing into the night wasn't the wisest. 'Now to find a place to sleep. The crown of one of the trees should be high enough that wolves or foxes couldn't get me, and all the birds will simply be scared away by my appearance. With my claws, it will be easy for me to climb a tree.'

As soon as the thought flashed through his mind, Dan immediately found himself on one of the thickest branches of the nearest tree, purple sparks pouring from his body. He blinked a couple of times, trying to figure out what had happened when it dawned on him that he had just teleported with just a thought.

Dan sat down, leaning against the thick tree trunk and closed his eyes, leaving his legs hanging down. 'Well, that's good to know. Apparently, The Wanderer made me into a knock-off Enderman.' Dan thought about it and left the panic to his future self.

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At Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – located somewhere in the mountains of Scotland – Headmaster Albus Too-Many-Names Dumbledore looked at the Book of Acceptance in confusion. It was an artifact that wrote the names and dates of birth of all the potential British-born students at the school, and now the book was doing something strange.

Dumbledore was an old man over one hundred and fifty years old. He was tall, with long gray hair and a beard down to the bottom of his belly. Many will say that he was the most senile old man they have ever seen, especially after considering his fashion choices. Bright yellow robes with lemon embroidery on the sleeves, a blue pointing hat and half-moon glasses on his once-broken nose.

The parchment sheets turned so quickly that they almost merged into one image, sometimes flickering with colors that were inaccessible to the human eye. Finally, the book opened to one particular page and the quill rose from the table. It dipped a couple of times in the ink and began to write between the names of the students.

[Danil Grigorievich Khromov – 18.09.1979] cursive letters filled the yellowish paper and Dumbledore frowned.

The Book of Acceptance was not supposed to work this way, that much was obvious. 'Fidelius charm to hide the student's identity? It's like what a paranoid parent who fled the Soviet Union would do.' Many people did something like that, the Magical Soviet Union was not the best place to live. Dumbledore scratched his long beard as he thought about the new incident. "But then the quill would write his name, it would just become invisible to the eye," he muttered.

One of the many strange devices on his shelves clicked, announcing that someone was standing at the door to his office. A look at these shelves gave him an idea of ​​who exactly was standing there. Severus Snape, not Dumbledore's rare visitor, but not on the first day of school.

"Come in, Severus," he said calmly, already trying to guess what had caused the Potions master to come so early. Maybe someone from the fourth years melted another cauldron? No, it must be something more serious.

A middle-aged man with greasy black hair and a hocked nose entered the office, his robes were exclusively black, and his skin was pale as a sheet. Severus wasn't the kind of person who cared about his public image, at least not at first glance.

"Headmaster," he started. "My students reported that Hagrid's third year class had a... unfortunate incident."

'Ah, so that's why he's here.' Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, I already heard the report from Poppy, young Malfoy got scratched, didn't he?"

Severus looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. "I wouldn't call a Hippogriff's attack a scratch, but yes, I'm here because of it. What will be done with the beast now?"

Dumbledore sighed heavily and sat down in his chair, but still kept his back straight, manners a man's face, after all.

"The school will take no action against an animal that doesn't know better. Buckbeak will continue to live under Hagrid's care."

Severus furrowed his brows as he looked at the Book of Acceptance, which was still open to the page with the new student's name on it.

"Maybe I'll accept that explanation, but Lucius will definitely demand the head of his son's assaultiant." Severus read the words on the paper and frowned even more. "Khromov? We don't have a student by that name and from what I can see, he's not dead and doesn't attend other schools."

When a potential student dies, the quill strikes their name from the register, forever remaining a memory of the child's death. If the student chooses to study at another school, the name of the school will be written next to the name. When expelled, the child's name simply disappeared from the book, as if it wasn't even worthy to be written inside.

But there were no marks next to Khromov's name, Dumbledore wasn't sure exactly how something like that was possible, but he had a couple of ideas.

"No, we don't." Headmaster easily agreed. "I dare say I've never even heard of a magical family with that last name. Though it's not surprising given our new student's Russian roots."

Severus raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Are you going to offer him a place at Hogwarts? Wouldn't it make more sense to find him and send him back to Sov– Russia?" He quickly corrected himself.

Not even two years have passed since the announcement of the demise of the Soviet Union, but most people have already got used to the new world, which could not be said about the Wizards. The wizarding community in Britain was much more backward compared to others, so Dumbledore wouldn't be surprised if people continued to believe that Russia was still under the control of the Communist Party.

"If Mr. Khromov wants, we will provide him with a way to return home. But if he chooses to stay here, then I think the Ministry will let him." Dumbledore spoke with confidence, knowing full well that the Ministry wouldn't have much choice if he used all his positions.

Magical Russia was far from the best place right now, especially for children, and Albus had no intention of sending the child to certain death.

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