Ch 2- Halftime show.
"Dennis, is it true that you have decided to ask for a transfer to the Celtics?"
"Yeah man. Coach Daly and I feel that we weren't getting the respect from management so we put in our two weeks noticed. I mean we brought 2 titles to Detroit. 2 in a time where Celtics have 5 and the Lakers have 5 and they keep getting on my case for showing up latte or skipping training camp." Rodman replied to the press conference.
"But why the Celtics?"
"That's because I want to play with Bird and Sarge."
"Sarge?"
"Oh. Snape. That's what I call him, he's the drill sergeant to me, see it was last year at the all-star game and I showed up an hour latte for warm-up, so Sarge goes up to me, brings up my stats from the last game I played before the All-Star weekend and says '5 points deducted'. And he takes of a total of five points from every one of my game stats. I say to him 'Man, who do you think you are? I earned that!'. Sarge goes 'Then it should be easy for you to not only replicate such a result but earn more, or can't you?' And I was like 'Oh, he knows my language'. So that's why man, me and Snape have an understating, I can be me, but I got to pay the toll during the games and that's all I've been doing since I started balling and Snape's been one of the few guys on court who understands that so that's why I'm going, I want to spend some time with someone who understands me." Rodman said as the light bulbs flashed and Lilly Evans closed the tv as she was in deep thought
Flashbacks overwhelmed her of her time after that day at the lake.
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Lilly Evans 5th year had been a wild ride. She had lost her best friend to people that thought she wasn't even human but an animal, she felt more confused and alone that ever and…Avery and Mulciber where madder at her than usual.
"What you'd do to Snape you mudblood!? He barely talks to us, his real friends anymore!"
And other such horrible things they'd say to her, Lilly ignored them for the most part, they tried to hex her one or two times but then Lilly hexed them back.
She had not seen Severus all summer and come fall she only saw him in passing. He, during the first half of the year was someone who always carried books with him. Lilly also saw him a few times either jogging around the school, running up walls and trying to hit as high as possible with his palm.
A few times Lilly saw him swimming in the lake.
After months of not having any word of him and him actually avoiding her gaze and looking into the ground she once found him asleep at the great hall table, books all around him as he had fallen asleep studying.
She saw how an owl brought him some mail, mail which Lilly in curiosity decided to take a peek but all she could manage before Sev stirred and she ran away were seeing 3 letters on the envelope.
"SAT?" Lilly asked herself in confusion.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
"The bloke's acting weirder than usual." James said as he along with Sirius and a Lilly who busted them and invited herself to come used the invisibility cloak to follow Severus who was had snuck out one early one morning just as their 6th year was ending and was carrying a box to the tree where James had hung him upside down and….it happened.
There they saw as Sev made a big pile that Lilly could see where his bits and bobbles, a few books that Lilly gave him, some old wizard books, a few looked like blood supremacy books.
There and then Severus used his want to light them on fire. After that Severus took off his robe and threw it into the fire, along with any wizard apparel and jewelry.
And the end of it he moved to snap his wand in two, but stopped just short before he tucked it away. Snape sat down next to the fire and watched the sun rise over the lake before he got up and put on some muggle clothes. Particularly a strange jacket that Lilly vaguely remembered seeing in some American flicks on the telly.
Snape walked away after that leaving behind a confused Lilly and Marauder duo.
Before she even got back to the dorm proper the whole school was ablaze, in Hogwarts gossiped travelled faster that the speed of light.
"Snape leaving?! Well, that's something to celebrate, we managed to get him to leave!" Sirius said and made some confetti appear with his wand.
"He didn't leave Black. He graduated a year early." Marlene McKinnon said surprising the gathered Gryffindors in the common room resulting in a round of murmurs all around.
"What? No bloody way!" James said in disbelief.
"Slughorn couldn't shut up about it. Snape took his NEWTS last week and now he's graduated, apparently, he got some scholarship in America and he's leaving tonight. McGonagall is going to apparate him there." The Prewit Twins said in unison.
"He's going out there to recruit Death Eaters! That sounds something that Snape'd do!" Sirius said in accusation.
"If he's doing that then why are Mulciber and Avery so angry with him? They angrily confronted me about Sev staying away from them." Lilly asked and he was greeted by silence.
"He….he must have had a change of heart! He's walked away from them! From the Dark Lord, from the Death Eaters. From everything!" Lilly said before she burst trough the doors of the Common room. Lilly heard Jame's voice shout after her and hear his footsteps but she didn't care. She had to find Sev and talk to him.
She had to know if maybe, just maybe her best friend was back.
She ran to the McGonagall's office where she could see Sev's distinctive hair just disappear inside of it.
A snap of apparition was heard and another one as before Lilly managed to reach the office door her Head of House opened it and stood before them.
"Curfew will be in effect in 10 minutes, I suggest you two go back to the dorm unless you wish to spend the night in detention instead of your beds?"
"Of course, professor, it's just, where has he gone? Please, I have to talk to him!" Lilly half begged her teacher.
"I am afraid that Mr Snape has requested that I keep his whereabouts a secret and as such I am not at liberty to say. Mr Snape has made it clear that he does not want his former schoolmates to be aware of his new location." McGonagall said and gave a poignant look at James who looked away embarrassed a bit.
"If that is all then I bid you both a good night."
"Wait. Professor, what does SAT mean?"
"SAT means nothing. But if you are referring to S.A.T. then it means standardize aptitude test."
"And is that some king of thing at the American Wizarding school?" James asked.
"No Mr Potter. S.A.T is a testing method used in the muggle world in America as part of their College admission program and that is all you shall wriggle out of me. Both of you to your beds unless you wish for a peaceful night in the dungeon?" McGonagall said with a raised eyebrow.
"Muggles? What's going on?" James asked.
"I don't know. But I do know it's my fault." Lilly said in shame and James put a comforting hand on her shoulder, Lilly let him do so and took comfort in it.
Xxxxxxxxxxxx
By the time fall came and Lilly returned to Hogwarts she was starting her 7th year. NEWTS were coming up and James had been writing to her all summer and…Lilly was not getting so annoyed with him as of late.
On the morning after the welcoming feast Potter burst into the main hall along with Black and they where slammed the latest issue of the Daily Prophet on the table and Lilly's eyes bugged out when she saw an image of Severus in playing basketball on the court, he dribbled the ball and passed it to another player who scored an impressive long shot from distance.
Lilly didn't know how to react, neither did the Marauders or all of Hogwarts.
Days past and each time there was a game there was a section in the prophet about Sev. Lilly cut them out and kept a scrap book of them as he had become a sort of pass time by the stressed out 7th years.
When she heard that Severu's team was playing in the final of some American tournament she used all her skill at charms in order to hook up a modified screen projector in order to catch the broadcast.
What started out as her little project had morphed into a huge event where the broadcast would be in the great hall and every student including the teachers there to see.
Lilly saw how Slughorn in particular was beaming with pride as Dumbledore topped him by bringing a small scarf that read Indiana State Sycamore's around his neck, even McGonagall seemed invested.
Hagrid was a one man cheering gallery as the game started.
"Good morning college ball fans and welcome to the 1979 finals where Michigan lead by Magic Johnston and Jay Vincent clash with Indiana lead by Larry Bird and Severus Snape. Snape is a recent addition to the team and made his name in November's exhibition game vs the Soviet National team where Indiana routed the mighty Russian basketball machine."
"What a load of crock, Magic Johnson, can you believe these muggles?".
"SHUUSH!" Lilly shushed Sirius up as she turned her gaze back to the game.
Almost every student there with the exception of a few that came from muggle homes had never watched basketball and even fewer watched the American College league but it was a final and it did not disappoint.
Lilly watched as that muggle called Magic Johnson lived up to his name as he dribbled half way past the entire team to dunk and score 2 points.
When the ball was put in play again she saw as Severus got the ball and dribbled forward, he jumped up to dunk, but at the last moment passed to the one they called Larry Bird and she did a shot from distance that nabbed Indiana 3 points.
Then it was Michigan's turn as the one called Vincent had the ball and moved to pass but Severus punched it away, stopping from reaching Magic Johnston and into the crowd.
That was how it happened for the next few hours. Severus played different than the rest of his team, he didn't recover as much as stop Michigan's play and get it out of the court and when he had the ball he only tried to score 3 times and managing only one, but his last minute passes always reached a player and they managed to score since Michigan where open from trying to stop Sev's fake shots.
"Blimey but that Bird bloke's good and that Johnston id no joke!" Lilly heard Potter say as Michigan where two points ahead and the game was nearing it's end. Indiana recovered the ball and they immediately passed to Sev with 4 seconds to go.
Severus hurled the ball all across the field towards the opponent's basket, no! It was a long pass that Larry Bird caught and threw a shot from the 3-point line just as the buzzer sounded off and it went it!
The whole of the great hall erupted in cheers, even the Slytherins joined in as Indiana had beaten Michigan thanks to Larry Bird's last second 3 pointer that was made possible from Sev's passes.
That was the beginning of Sev's path in the NBA.
After that Lilly kept following his progress. He was not drafted but an article said he was signed for the practice squad for training camp during the summer. Come fall and the start of the season Lilly watched as Sev would start off the bench and when he joined the game things changed.
Sev was unique amongst his pears in that while he himself was average at best, his constant passing improved everyone else's game and with Bird receiving most of his passes Bird was unstoppable.
All throughout the war Lilly and James would watch Severu's games, it was their few hours' worth of levity in during those dark times.
Then came that Dark Night when the Dark Lord was defeated, but many knew he would return, the war just as it seems to come out of nowhere into their lives so to it left and the wizarding world was never the same.
"Especially with Snape's face all over the place." Jame's voice was heard coming from the living room as he talked to Harry over a modified muggle phone that used charms to reach Harry at Hogwarts.
"Gotta go prongslett, need to get snacks for tonight's big game!" James said and bade their son goodnight.
"Allright love spill, what's eating you? Is it Snape again?"
"Yes, how can't it be not so?"
"Love, go an talk to him, I mean weren't you two best mates once?"
"And I abandoned him James! I cut him out of my life! I…I can't face him…..not after all this time…..to many years have passed…"
"Love….it wasn't a good time…the war brought out the worst in us….Still I can tell you want to talk to him badly, why didn't you go and talk to him after we found out where he was?"
"Because when we found out Sev was famous, I mean the Americans love their college stars and I just couldn't do it, it looked like I wanted to reconcile with him only because of his fame, then he joined the Celtics and they beat the Lakers, he went from a small star to a real star and it would have looked even worse if I went there and then to talk to him."
"Lils…..it's been 12 years, no one is going to call you some leech if you go and talk to him now. I mean Harry's already talked to him and he can't stop, so why don't you?"
"But what am I going to say to him James? What do you say to someone who you thought the worst off and you where wrong? What do you say to someone you wronged so badly?" Lilly asked in sadness.
"That's a good question love, same one I ask myself a lot, cause I'm in the same boat as you love." James said as they got their snacks ready, redialed Harry and the Potter family watched as the Celtics played the Denver Nuggets that day.