Village Hidden In The Shifts
Chapter One:

Emily

The adventure of a lifetime started on my eleventh birthday, not long after my family, minus Uncle Marcus, moved to Scotland. I was petting my family's Dalmatian Madison (although she was more my dog than she was Mom's or Dad's dog, which was fine by me) when she just fell asleep. It had me worried, so I took her to Aunt Cassie.

Aunt Cassie's eyes widened in shock and she seemed to have a bit of a panic attack before she calmed down. "Don't worry, Madison-chan is just fine." She'd picked up on mine and Robby, my cousin's, habit of calling the animals –kun or –chan depending on their gender. "I'll tell you what happened later, but right now I need to call Tobias, Rachel and Jake."

At dinner time, our parents explained to us what happened.

"What happened was you absorbed Madison's DNA." Dad explained. "You know the stories about the kids who transformed into animals to fight aliens?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Those were and still are our favorite stories. So?"

"They're real." Uncle Jake said bluntly.

Robby's face lit up. "Really? Can we meet the kids from the stories? Please?"

Mom laughed. "You're looking at them."

My eyes widened. "No. Way." And then I promptly did a Hinata and passed out. Hinata was a character from our favorite show, Naruto. Unlike most children, Robby and I had never been interested in (shudder) SpongeBob Squarepants or anything similar. No, for us, it had always been Naruto and a couple other anime series, such as Fullmetal Alchemist.

This would later lead us to form what we called 'Koutaigakure no sato' or 'the village hidden among the shifts,' for our morphing abilities.

"Oi, wake up Fainter-chan." Robby teased I wasn't sure how much later. "If you don't get up right now I'll keep calling you fainter-chan until you sew my mouth shut."

I shook a fist at him as I sat up. "Oh, just go rot in hell or something." I huffed. I knew some very foul language despite only being eleven.

"Emily," Dad warned.

"Oh lighten up Tobias." Mom scolded. "At least it's just swearing. There are worse things to be doing at almost eleven years old. Besides, she'll do it anyway, and so will Robby for that matter, so they may was well have permission."

Yeah, Robby and I both had very foul mouths (though we didn't say a certain four letter F-word which was not four in our parents' hearing because that was just asking for trouble). I'm not quite sure where we learned it from or why we started doing it, but I can't honestly say I especially care where I learned it or why we did it. I just didn't matter to me.

A couple days later, we had a surprise visitor. He called himself Albus Dumbledore, and he was from a place called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He claimed we had magic, somehow. He wasn't sure who we got it from, though it came from Mom and Uncle Jake's line.

We agreed that a few days later, we would go to Diagon Alley to get our supplies.

We would have gone to the zoo to get more morphs, but sadly it was closed for renovation. I believe Dad said they were adding another area for Asian cats (lions and tigers and the works, something I was very excited about, having an unusual obsession with big cats).

Our first stop was the bookstore. We got the books we needed and a few more for entertainment purposes as well as a few books on various magical creatures. After that was the magical creature store, where we each found a bird to act as a mail carrier. I found a golden eagle. Robby found a Red Tailed Hawk. I found this incredibly ironic, considering that my dad was the one who used to be stuck in default hawk morph. After the creature store was the robe shop. It took a few minutes full of poking but once we were done getting robes came the part I'd most been looking forward to ever since Robby and I found out we had magic: wands!

I practically bolted to the wand shop. "Whoa there tiger, slow down would you?" Dad joked. "The wands aren't going anywhere."

I scowled at him. "Dad!" I objected. "You know I've been looking forward to this."

Mom laughed. "Yes honey, we know." She turned to Uncle Jake. "Do you want to split up? Since they've been looking forward to wands so much, one of us can take them to get them while someone else could get their school books and supplies."

"Good idea." Dad agreed. "I'll take them to get wands, if it's okay with you Jake?"

Uncle Jake nodded. "It's alright with me."

"Yes!" I cheered. "Come on, let's go!" Breaking into a run, I bolted towards the wand shop.

"Well, well," A voice startled me. "I never thought I'd be seeing one of the children of the famous Animorphs here. I must say," He turned to Uncle Jake and Aunt Cassie. "It's an honor."

"How do you know about us?!" Uncle Jake demanded.

"I'm something of a seer." Olivander-san told him. "I can see things that happen not in the future, but in the past. I saw plenty of your adventures and your children. However, I never imagined that I would be seeing them in my shop."

"So can we get wands now?" I asked before Dad shot me a warning glance.

Olivander-san laughed. "Of course. Since you're so eager, why don't you go first?"

I grinned. "With pleasure." After trying numerous wands, I finally found a match in a wand that was made of hickory, fifteen inches even in length, and had a hair from a white Siberian tiger as the core. Considering I liked tigers and wanted one to my battle morph, I couldn't be more thrilled. Olivander-san cautioned me that I wouldn't be able to use magic outside of school because the Ministry, the magical government, had a spell called the Trace on all the wands he sold, since underage magic, at least to Muggleborns or those born to non-magical parents, was forbidden. I secretly began looking for ways to get rid of said Trace so that I could do magic.

Next was Robby, and after even more wands than I went through, he was chosen by a wand (because the wand chooses the wizard according to Olivander-san, not the other way around) that was made of Blackthorn the wood of warriors, fourteen and a half inches long, and for the core had a bone from a gray wolf. I found it very interesting.

After that was done, we bought our books and other supplies. I nearly gagged at Lockhart's books, and I had to hold back a wail of despair when I heard that Lockhart himself would be our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year. How troublesome.

"What's the problem with Lockhart anyway, aside from the obvious?" Mom wanted to know. "I mean, he's obviously not fit to be a teacher, but there's something else, isn't there?"

I nodded. "He's a fraud. I know he is. A glory hogging fraud."

I watched a boy, the famous Harry Potter supposedly, get dragged up on stage, muttering in what seemed to be Latin. How he knew it, I wasn't sure.

I didn't know much Latin, but I did catch son of a gorgon, power hungry snake, and a few choice suggestions about where Lockhart could stick A) his books and B) his head. Not to mention several colorful insults to his intelligence and his ancestors.

The way Mom, Dad, Aunt Cassie, and Uncle Jake were looking at Lockhart with barely contained smirks, they wholeheartedly agreed with the boy's sentiments.

"I like him." Robby announced.

I grinned. "Me too." I agreed. I looked around, but didn't see anyone really looking for him. There were several people looking at him, and a red haired woman seemed to look for him every few minutes, but he didn't really have anyone looking out for him.

"Hey Dad," Robby began, apparently having the same idea as me, looking at Uncle Jake. "You see that boy over there? Can we invite him over?"

"Let me guess," Uncle Jake smiled. "He doesn't have anyone to look out for him and you want to change that. Well I don't see why not."

I cheered. "Yes! Thank you Uncle Jake!" I hurried over to the boy, dragging him away before Lockhart could get another chance to take his picture again.

"Alright," The boy demanded. "What's this all about?"

I grinned. "I noticed that you didn't seem to have anyone looking out for you." I explained. "And I wanted to change that. I wouldn't be surprised if my parents or my aunt and uncle were willing to take you in. I have to agree with your descriptions of Lockhart."

He scowled. "I have Mrs. Weasley and Mr. Weasley looking out for me." He protested.

I raised an eyebrow. "Really? Then why does the red haired woman only looks for you once every few minutes before going back to watching her own children?"

He opened his mouth to find an explanation . . . only to close it when he could find none. "Okay fine, I guess that while she does probably see me as a surrogate son, she's always going to look out for her own children first, even if it's subconsciously."

I smirked. "Great. Come on, I'll introduce you to my family." I led him over to Mom, Dad, Uncle Jake Aunt Cassie and Robby. I had a feeling that he was going to like them. If they liked him, he just might get a chance at being able to touch the Morphing Cube that gave them their own morphing powers. If he did, that was just fine with me.