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Thanks To: Isis the Sphinx, Insane Seto Fangirl, AquaRiasderawr, Doc Rein, Proops, and LostGryffindorFoundSlytherin for the reviews.for the reviews.

.: This is thought speech :.

Chapter 6 - Mission 2, Part 1

"What are these? Eese? Ax asked, in human form. They were currently in the kitchen of the Order headquarters, trying to discuss what to do next. Also in the room were Snape, Dumbledore, and Harry. Snape and the Animorphs agreed that the mission the previous night would be kept quiet from everyone else.

"Jelly beans, Ax-man," Marco said. "You've had them before."

"Those are every flavor jelly beans," Harry said. "And I really do mean every flavor. I got one that tasted like sand once. At least, I think it tasted like sand. I've never had sand before . . ." he trailed off, realizing he was rambling. He really wasn't good with meeting people, contrary to what everyone thought. The Dursley's didn't do anything to help that his entire life. At least I don't have to go back there, he thought to himself.

His aunt and Uncle never hit him before. They were a little rough, yes, but they never hit him. That changed the second Harry entered the house this summer, though. Harry didn't understand why they were so mad at him, but he assumed it had something to do with the previous summer. He had thought that they'd be over the dementor thing by now, but they obviously weren't. It didn't help that Dumbledore wrote a letter to Aunt Petunia saying that Sirius was killed.

The bad thing about not having to go to the Dursley's anymore was that he had to stay at headquarters. If Harry wasn't so scared about being killed by his uncle, something he wouldn't put past the man right now, he would rather be stuck on Privet Drive, ignored, than be at Sirius' old house.

"Yum," Ax said after tasting one. "Tastes similar to cigarettes. Ts. That's a good sound. Ts." Jake, shaking his head, rested his face in his hands.

"He eats cigarettes?" Snape asked flatly.

"He eats a lot of things he shouldn't when in human form," Jake answered, rolling his eyes at Ax, who was now eating the jelly beans like crazy. "At least it's just a candy," he mumbled. Jake looked around the room. Currently, it was the animorphs plus Harry and Snape – who was reading the Daily Prophet, the wizarding newspaper – in the room. Dumbledore was somewhere else, which was fine with him. The problem was, though, he didn't know if he should let them in on what was going on. Snape helped him before, and might be able to help them again, but Harry . . . well, actually, Harry was a couple years older than the rest of them. Making his decision, he became serious. "We need to get back onto business. The sooner we can get this done, the sooner we can get home and let the chee get back to their lives."

"Chee?" Harry asked.

"Long story," Tobias said. "And I don't know if we can tell you." Harry shrugged.

"So, we take turns watching The Sharing. We try to get into it, and see if we can find a yeerk pool. Simple mission," Rachel said. "We've had tougher ones."

"Yes, but in those, we had more of an idea of what we were up against. We have no idea how many yeerks are here," Marco said.

"What do we do when we find the Yeerk Pool?" Cassie asked.

"Blow it up, of course," Rachel said.

"We'll figure that out later," Jake said, waving Rachel's suggesting off a bit, "even though blowing it up may be our only option." Everyone sat in silence for awhile and Jake thought. "Is there anyway we could get something explosive if we need it?" he asked Snape, who looked up with irritation.

"I could supply something," Snape said, his voice still flat, and Jake nodded.

"Great. Now, we'll take it in shifts. How long is it to London?"

Jake watched as Harry looked at Snape while Snape stared almost blankly at him, the man's eyes boring into his own head. He had stared into Visser Three's eyes before, though, so it didn't bother him. There was no hostility in his eyes. In fact, there was almost no emotion. That was bordering on way too weird for him. Finally, after staring at the man for much too long, Jake blinked and Snape put down the paper.

"I will speak to Headmaster Dumbledore, but I believe that the quickest way to the area of town you wish to go to is to floo to the Leaky Cauldron. From your descriptions, the building should only be a few streets away."

Looking around at his fellow animorphs yet again, he saw them all nod, aside from Ax, and he looked back at Snape. "Professor Snape, we'll need to start as soon as possible."

"Is there anything I can do?" Harry spoke up.

"No," Snape said immediately, but Tobias shrugged.

"We don't know much about London – or England for that matter – so telling us about what to expect would be nice," Tobias said and after glaring at the professor for a few seconds, he turned to him.

"I can do that," he said. "I grew up in the muggle world, so I know a lot about it." He glared once more at Snape and pushed his chair roughly away from the table. "Loo," he mumbled before leaving the kitchen, and all the animorphs looked at Snape.

"I will contact the headmaster," the professor said, standing up and leaving the kitchen, too, leaving the animorphs on their own.

"Shifts of three?" Jake asked, and the rest nodded. Cassie spoke up, though.

"Should we go as birds? We don't really know the animals from around this area. If we are birds that aren't around here, we'll definitely stick out."

"I know birds," Harry said from the doorway.

"You know birds, Potter? You don't spend time studying the courses you should," they heard Snape from behind Harry. "Don't stand in the doorway." Blushing, Harry entered the kitchen and sat down, shrugging a little.

"When I got Hedwig, I became interested in birds. It was something I could read at the Dursley's openly without them getting angry. If you're going to be in groups, a starling or a finch would be the best, even though you usually won't find a lot in areas without trees. Better than nothing, though. Blackbirds might work, though. If you are alone, kestral might work best. There's a place that houses birds near the Leaky Cauldron, sort of like a living museum. I went there a few times before my third year . . ."

"Great!" Cassie said.

"Well, let's go," Rachel replied, standing up.

"I can give you the money to get in," Harry said, also standing up. "It's not much, and it would be better than sneaking in. Can I go?"

"No," Snape and Dumbledore said at the same time. "It simply isn't safe enough," the headmaster continued.

"I'll get the money," Harry grumbled, and Jake kinda felt bad. He was probably trapped in the house, and even though it hadn't been long, he knew that if he was expected to stay inside all the time, he would go crazy. Not a fun prospect. Harry came back a few minutes later with some paper money.

"That will be more than enough," he said. "They're probably open until seven, so if you want time to decide on birds, now would be the best time to go."

With that, Harry left, and the animorphs turned to the two adults.

"Are you positive that you wish to do this?" Dumbledore asked.

"We don't have much of a choice, do we?" Marco asked bitterly.

"No, I suppose you don't." Dumbledore handed him several pouches. "There's enough floo powder in there for about forty trips. Muggles are able to use the floo, so you will only have troubles finding your way into the Leaky Cauldron. When you leave the building, make careful note of where you are and you should be able to find your way back. Muggleborn parents are able to find it when they try."

"Thanks," Jake and Cassie said and the same time, and the six were led to the fireplace in the next room.

"Make sure you leave at the correct fireplace, and good luck." Dumbledore left the Animorphs alone in the room, and Jake looked after him, bewildered. Make sure you leave at the correct fireplace . . . The old man's words echoed in his head. How were they suppose to know? They traveled through the floo before, but was this somehow different? Jake didn't remember being given that suggestion before. Looking around to see if Harry was around, and seeing that he wasn't, Jake looked at his friends and then at the fireplace.

"Let's go," Rachel said, taking some floo powder from the bag Jake was holding and threw it into the fire. The fire turned green and Rachel stepped into it without hesitation. "Leaky Cauldron," she said and she disappeared into a swirl of green. One by one, they fallowed, Jake last. Jake didn't know about the others, but he felt weird coming out of a fireplace, but when he looked around, no one was paying any attention to them, so he tugged on Marco's shirt and they all followed him quietly out of the pub.

"Which way?" asked Cassie and the rest shook their heads. There didn't appear to be anything that looked like it would house birds. Just as Jake was about to choose a direction, he remembered to look at where they came from and saw that there was no building, but they were between two distinct buildings.

"How are we supposed to get back to a building that doesn't exist?" Marco asked, kicking a stone away from him.

"I can sort of see it," Cassie said, and everyone looked at her. "I know it sound weird; I mean, I can't see it, but I can kind of picture it in my head. I think . . . I'll be able to find it again."

"Good," Jake and Marco said together immediately. Honestly, Jake couldn't even picture where a building could be. The two that were there were pretty close together.

"So which way, then?" Rachel asked this time, looking at Jake, but Jake just shrugged his shoulders.

"I think it would have helped if Harry had come along," Tobias spoke up, the first time for a long time.

"Yeah, it would have," Jake mumbled, indicating a direction with his head. "Let's go this way. He said it was near, so if we don't come across it, we can turn around and go the other way."

"Yeah, but what if it's not on this street? We can't just wander around until seven."

Jake shrugged, not knowing really what to say. After they walked awhile, though, he spoke up.

"I guess if we don't find it, we start off tonight with owls and asked Harry where it is later," he said, but a few steps later, Tobias spoke up.

"There it is!" Tobias said, pointing across the street. Flock, it was called. Not a very descriptive name, but underneath it said, "Living Bird Museum," so Jake took a guess that it was probably the place they were looking for. There weren't many cars traveling in the area, so they crossed the street where they were and entered the building.

"Hello!" someone greeted them in a very British accent. "Here to meet some birds?"

"Yup," Marco answered, and the man collected their money before leading them further into the building.

"We're only open for another hour, but that should be enough time to look for a bit."

"Can we hold any of the birds?"

"A few of them are tame enough," the man answered. "Anything of interest?"

"Kestrals. Starlings," Rachel suggested.

"Finches," Jake added.

"Ah, finches. We have a lot of those, here. There are many, many different species of finches. Now, we have greenfinches and goldfinches here," the man continued, leading toward an area of the building that had several different birds, some of a yellow gold color, some of several different colors.

"The yellow ones are the greenfinches and the birds with different colors are the goldfinches," the man said.

"I think I like the greenfinches the best," Cassie said. "Can I hold one?"

"Have you ever held a bird before?" the birdkeeper asked, and Cassie nodded.

"My parents are vets, and we keep injured animals in my barn," she answered, giving the man a sweet smile. The man smiled back and carefully opened the bird cage and reached his hand in slowly. That was the thing about Cassie: she always knew what to say to make a situation go her way. It was perfect for situations like this. It was one of the things I liked about her, but it wasn't something you'd normally expect.

When the guy caught a bird, he gently handed it over to Cassie and after a moment, the bird calmed down a lot. After petting the bird's feather for a minute or so, she gently handed the bird off to me and I concentrated on the bird to acquire it's DNA.

"It's beautiful," Cassie said as I passed it off to Rachel, who looked at it with squinty eyes for a moment before petting the small bird's head. Jake looked at her, wondering why she was only petting the head, but turned his attention back to the birdkeeper, who was talking more about the birds. Eventually, they moved on to the kestrals and a few other birds, which the rest of them picked and chose what they wanted. Nearing seven, they left, everyone but Cassie a little bored.

"Let's find the Sharing building," Rachel said as soon as they left. "Birds?"

Finding a dark place to morph, they all morphed into greenfinches. Jake noticed that the bird mind was very nervous and he kept on flitting about. When he got the animal mind under control, he fluttered – because flying in that form wasn't quite like flying in a larger bird form – to a ledge above him, and the others followed.

.:Let's get higher!:. Rachel said, and Jake could tell she was excited. He had to admit, it was fun to flutter about. Better than being in fly form, which in itself was exhilarating.

.:We must find the building before it gets dark, Prince Jake, if we wish to stay in these forms,:. Ax said. .:If I am correct, we have perhaps 72 minutes before the sun is below the horizon and these are birds that must live in the light.:.

.:Okay, everyone. Split up, but stay within thought speak range. Remember, it was near the train station.:.

.:You know, someone could just demorph and ask where the train station is. It would save us time,:. Marco said, and the group of birds settled down.

.:That would work,:. Jake said after awhile. .:Who wants to?:.

.:I'll do it,:. Rachel said immediately.

.:What a surprise,:. Marco said sarcastically.

.:I'll ask,:. Cassie said before any fights between them could start and Jake gave the go ahead. Cassie flew from the group to where they morphed before and demorphed. She was shoeless, but her leotard looked normal enough, so Jake hoped that no one would be suspicious when she asked for directions. He watched, trying to stay close enough to hear, as she asked politely for the directions from some old guy with what was probably his granddaughter. The man gladly pulled out a piece of paper to write/draw directions on and Cassie soon thanked him, said bye to the little girl and made her way back to the alley after the two continued on their walk. After she studied the directions for a bit more, she folded the piece of paper and put it in the trash before morphing back into a bird.

.:Easy,:. Jake said, and Rachel and Cassie agreed.

.:So we find our way there,:. Marco spoke up. .:Then what?:.

.:We stake it out,:. Tobias finally spoke up. .:Then we figure out what to do.:.

.:Pretty much," Jake replied. .:When we find it, how about . . . me and Marco take the first shift. Hour and a half shifts.:.

.:Weren't we going to do three at a time?:. Ax asked, and Jake looked at the bird he figured was the andalite helplessly as his bird form could.

.:I guess we could. Maybe two at a time would be better so we all can have off three hours for sleep.:.

.:I like that idea,:. Marco spoke up. Rachel started to say something, but Jake cut in.

.:Okay, we'll do hour and a half shifts, then. Let's go.:.

They flew off with Cassie in the lead. It didn't take them long to get to Kings Cross and it was easy to trace back to the Sharing building.

.:Everyone remember the way?:. Jake asked.

.:More or less,:. Rachel answered, but everyone else replied in the affirmative.

.:Let's go back, then,:. Cassie said. .:Get some rest or something. Who will take the next shift?:.

.:How about you and Rachel, Cassie? And then Tobias and Ax can have the next.:.

.:Works for me,:. Rachel said. .:See you!:. Rachel fluttered away quickly and Rachel, Tobias and Ax followed, leaving Jake and Marco to sit on top of the building.

.:Do you think they'll expect us 'andalites' to be in England?:. Jake asked.

.:Who knows? Let's play it safe and stay out of the way.:.

.:Let's,:. Jake answered and they worked their way into a bush across the street where they could easily see the building. Settling in for the short time before they would have to morph owls, they began talking about the newest video game that Jake's dad bought him, careful to watch for anything suspicious.