A/N: Well here we go, chapter two. Bear with me, I'm a big Dean Thomas fan so naturally he is going to feature in anything I write, and soccer is my life, so there's that =) Hopefully I have the table set well enough and the really interesting things should start happening in the next update. Let me know what you think!
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Knock knock.
"Come in."
Pushing the door open, Dean wiped some stray beads of water from his freshly shaved head he stepped across the threshold and into the gaffer's office; he'd been summoned just as he'd hopped out of the shower after training. The West Ham shield hung on the wall behind his desk, which the manager currently sat at, pouring over some notes through his reading glasses that he'd no doubt taken during the Liverpool game two days ago.
Taking a deep breath, fearing his starting position was already in jeopardy, Dean said blankly, "You wanted to see me boss?"
Gianfranco Zola, current manager of the Hammers, lifted his eyes from the notes and greeted his young striker warmly. "Thomas, please, have a seat."
Nodding, Dean took the invitation and sat down in one of the dark red lounge chairs situated directly in front of the gaffer's desk. Hands clasped together, Dean took a deep breath and lifted his eyes to meet those of his manager.
Zola took that as an invitation to speak.
"So what did you think of your performance yesterday Thomas?"
Swallowing his nerves, Dean spoke honestly, something Harry Potter had taught him was always the best thing to do in situations such as these. "Not my best effort, if I'm being honest sir," he leaned back in the chair and massaged one of his temples with a steady hand. "I really felt like I let the team down on that long ball John played me in the box, I don't know what happened, I just took my off it and it glanced off my toe, should have caught it on my laces, lost my concentration. And then I guess I just had a rush to the head later on, we were down three, I didn't see Carlton, kept my head down. Otherwise we would have got one back there."
Taking off his glasses, folding them, and laying them down atop the papers on the desk below him the gaffer picked up a pen and twirled it between his fingers before speaking again in his thick Italian accent. "Have you had a chance to see the Castrol rankings from Saturday?
"No sir, I spent the night out with some friends and spent the rest day yesterday with my girl, just woke up today for breakfast at the clubhouse and practice so I never got the chance, I was going to look over some of that tonight after tactical."
By tactical Dean referred to the night meeting where the manager and players went over game tape and discussed tactical changes they needed to make for the next week's game.
"Understandable; how are things with Ginny these days? Your problems are in the past, are they not?"
"Yes sir."
He and Gin had nearly broken up a few months ago, towards the end of the Premiere League season when he'd opted not to take a personal day the manager had offered him to attend Hogwarts for Mark Evans' graduation. Mark was Harry's maternal second cousin, a fact not discovered until Harry had already graduated from Hogwarts and defeated the dark lord. As the only blood family Harry had left, the whole eight of them had somewhat adopted Mark into their posse and his graduation was a big deal that all of the eight had attended sans Dean, who opted to play instead in West Ham's largely meaningless final fixture the same day.
It had lead to yet another argument between them about Dean's decision to leave the wizarding world behind in pursuit of his boyhood dream of playing professional football. All of his friends and even the most critical of the wizarding media had supported his decision, and ever since recent polls showed that football popularity in the wizarding world had skyrocketed over 100%. The Gryffindor common room even had a West Ham poster hanging above one of the couches. Quidditch was still King, and as Ginny had so furiously reminded him, both Harry and Ron turned down lucrative, record-breaking contracts with multiple teams all across England in order to enter the Agency and continue their pursuit of dark wizards as Aurors.
The gaffer, of course, knew none of this; Dean's cover was that he'd been in a military family which had traveled all over Europe before finally settling in Northern London, where Dean had finally been able to be discovered at the very late age of nineteen, for a footballer that is. By twenty-three he'd broken into the full team and this had proved to be his first year as a starter after Dean Ashton had suffered the dreaded metatarsal injury in training three weeks before the season.
If only he knew what kind of inner turmoil Dean faced every day listening to his friends talk about the wizarding world he had abandoned; he'd not even picked up his wand in more than a few weeks. Dean was never the strongest of his friends, in fact he'd openly admitted himself even before leaving the wand behind that he was the weakest of the group, but reading about feats Harry or Ron accomplished in the Diagon Daily that was sometimes the only contact he had with the other world for days or even weeks at a time constantly made him question his decision, and his destiny.
"I'm glad to hear that son," Zola continued. "In Italy, family is always the most important thing; the happier you are outside of the game the better you'll play on the pitch."
"Thank you sir."
"Anyways," the gaffer picked up his reading glasses and gazed over what Dean presumed to be the Castrol rankings from Saturday. "considering your elevated position on the field, your movement is impressive, only three players on the field did more running than you Saturday. I love a workhorse Dean, and I believe you have immense potential."
"Sir?"
"With that said," Dean's heart fell, knowing what was to come. "our beginning fixtures are intimidating. We are playing at Stamford Bridge next week, and I'm going to go with Carlton as a lone striker so we can keep our shape in the back."
"I understand sir."
"But, don't think I'm dropping you. We have Hull, Portsmouth, and Fulham in the following few weeks, and you are still my number two striker. Keep your head up in training and you're still going to get your minutes to prove yourself. Capello is a good friend of mine, and he has his eye on you son, we all know your potential."
The news that Fabio Capello, the manager of the English national team, had his eyes on him the year before the FIFA World Cup in South Africa this coming summer was exhilarating. Dean would do anything to find himself on a plane to South Africa, even if a portkey could do the job much quicker.
After a few more moments of small talk and minor tactical ideas Dean left the office far more confident than he'd entered it, ready to go home and talk to Ginny about the good news.
***
This was not going according to plan. They'd received intelligence the night before that a terrorist sect of dark wizards had a hideout in the wizarding town of Asheville just off the southern coast of England. The intelligence claimed there was a group of four or five wizards buried underground in a facility protected with a complicated array of security hexes and curses that Hermione Granger herself had deciphered in the lab.
The plan had gone as scheduled at the start, but once the strike team penetrated as far as the last security grid they came across a previously undetected security system that had obviously alerted the wizards inside to their presence. All five apparated into the open at once, flinging hexes and curses at the aurors before they'd even realized they were under attack.
Two of the rookies went down in convulsions immediately, while the rest of the more seasoned aurors managed to get guards up quick enough to save them from the same fate. Harry knew immediately these were not wizards to be taken lightly; they used dark curses that caused pain but not death; while less powerful than the nearly extinct avada kedavra that Voldemort had made so infamous, they were quicker, and easier to cast. Had the wizards cast the killing curse from the start all six aurors would have easily evaded the attack and launched into immediate counter attacks, dismantling the wizards in seconds.
As it was, because of the quick nature of the attacks the dark wizards were able to fire consecutive spells immediately that kept the aurors on the back foot. Harry's group-wide protego spell absorbed most of the initial damage and allowed Neville to use the time to put up his own spell -- Neville was the foremost authority on protective magic in the wizarding world -- and when that was secure Harry felt confident enough to attack.
"Reducto! Accio!" With two quick maneuvers Harry used the powerful destruction spell to destroy a portion of a brick wall behind two of the wizards, then immediately used the attracting spell accio to pull the destroyed bricks forward and into the wizards backs, the forty and fifty pound slabs of brick rendering each of the men unconscious.
Picking the remaining bricks out of the air and motioning them into a circle around him with his wand, Harry used the brick shield to block to curses from the final standing wizard as Ron flung powerful numbing hexes at him from the side and Ginny smashed through his protective shield on the right.
After a few moments, Harry was able to beat him down with a powerful stunning curse and Seamus immediately wrapped all five wizards up in one of his trademark binding hexes, unbreakable by any wizard including Harry himself. Neville was immediately at the side of the two downed aurors, each foaming at the mouth and shaking uncontrollably from the heavy-hitting curses placed on them.
Ginny joined Neville in tending to their injuries while Harry, Ron, and Seamus chose one wizard at random for questioning.
"What was your purpose here?"
The smile the wizard gave him was chilling, to say the least.
"We are, the beginning."
"The beginning of what?"
"The end of your world as you know it."
Although he'd heard numerous amount of claims just like this one, somehow Harry felt something different, something legitimate about this one.
"Are you acting on your own? Who is your leader?"
The wizard laughed, and Harry noticed that his eyes were growing glossy, and his nose had begun to bleed. Coughing, the man replied, "That, is not something you are ready to understand, Mr. Potter."
"Enlighten me."
"I wouldn't pretend to understand myself, even if I knew of their plan."
"Neville! Get over here now!"
Harry screamed across the field at the team's medical expert as he realized each of the men they'd trapped were bleeding out their eyes, ears, and noses, all while knowing there was nothing the brilliant young wizard could do for them.
"My death means nothing," choked out the dying wizard, a curious smile giving his bloodied face an eerie glow. "for I am only a pleb…I am…nothing. They will annihilate you."
By the time Neville got there the plebs as they identified themselves were gone.
Sighing, Harry brushed a few strands of his long hair aside. "How are Chris and Jordan?"
"They'll live; I'll have them brought to Mungo's tonight for observation just to be safe."
"Good. Now what the hell just happened?"
"I have no idea mate," Ron said, eyes confused and lost on the bodies of the four deceased wizards. "something killed them, obviously. But it wasn't anything that we did." he paused. "They wanted us here, didn't they?"
"It sure looks that way, and as such I think we need to vacate these premises immediately. Get Greggory and his team down here for forensics. Have the bodies shipped to Luna and 'Mione. We've gotta figure out what killed them. Research the word 'pleb'. I've never heard it before."
"I have." Seamus said, scratching his head. Everyone looked at him in a mixture of expectancy and surprise. "My father is a muggle, he was into muggle history and all that. Plebeians were a sort of lower-class people way back in Ancient Roman times, plebs was just a nickname. But that doesn't make any sense; they're just a social class from an ancient society."
Harry pursed his lips, having no idea what it all meant. "Well, we aren't gonna figure anything out here. I'll report to Kingsley; Neville, Ginny, get the rookies to Mungo's. Seamus get these bodies to the Ministry for Hermione and Luna. Ron, you stay here and tell Greggory everything he needs to know, I'm giving you on-site authority; find out what they were doing here."
Everyone nodded in affirmation and immediately got to their tasks, Ron and Harry taking one last look at the bodies before getting on with their own duties.
"I've got a bad feeling about this."