Severus Pov

He was going to kill Regulus. Or himself, or both.

How he had agreed to play seeker again?

He cursed himself, Reggie and the unfortunate soul who came up with this hazardous game the first time in one breath; dodged another bludger and dived down again.

It was his own plan that got him in this mess in the first place. Just the night before, Greengrass who hadn't made the team – since Reg chose him- said that if he was playing tomorrow, they would win.

Severus didn't like that, it seemed most of the Slytherin thought he got into the team on Regulus mercy, but he was actually good. Better than anyone else.

-how Regulus was so alike his loathsome brother and different at the same time was beyond him. Sirius was as much as a zealous in protecting Potter that Regulus was in his case, and he would aggressive fast if provoked.

Blood didn't lie after all-

So he opened his big mouth and bragged that he could get them the Quidditch cup just in this match.

He would absolutely blame it on Tobias and his gambling problem. It must be.

Regulus was about to jump on Greengrass throat – and had have a mind to jump on his for his stupid idea- but Severus wanted to prove himself. That he didn't get the position because he was Reg's friend.

"so listen, it was written in Quidditch through the ages, during early 1900s,one time a team scored like, 200 goals in one game and when they got the snitch, it was totally useless. Even if they didn't win in any other game they would win the cup. The key is to be fast in scoring a goal and stalling the other seeker from getting the snitch"

Thus the strategy was born.

He didn't have any idea why Potter was playing the other seeker, or if he knew about him playing seeker before this game.

It was supposed to be a secret!

Did they have a spy or something?

And he turned sharply as another bludger came for his head.

Really, the Marauders ambushing him from his first year, and Tobias parenting made him a dodging expert. While Potter struggled to find his footing in an unknown rule, he goaded him into believing the snitch was somewhere, and then the Gryffindor bludgers followed him alongside Potter, then he would dodge and leave Potter to deal with his own team's bludgers.

Hilarious.

Hilarious, but exhausting. He had been skipping meals to get on with his studying, and some nights he didn't sleep much. He feared his silencing charm to dispel , and then all his dorm would know exactly what happened in his house in summers.

When he looked at Potter, the boy was struggling with his broken glasses.

"no you bloody morons! Go after him not me! I am Gryffindor seeker!"

Served him right, the fucker. He had single-handedly ruined so many of his parchments, it was his turn to get one of his things broken too.

And the fact that it was dodging his own team's bludgers that broke his glass made him smile. Honestly, those balls , bludgers, were spelled to follow seekers, and when the two seekers were closer than a certain range, they would mess up and go after the one nearest instead of their primary target.

He looked at the board and puffed his chest, yep, his plan was good.

They had already scored 90, and the game was about to end. Slytherin played like a unanimous front, getting the quaffle to their chasers – both good- and scoring in seconds. All the while Gryffindore struggled to act as a team. Potter's rebellious streak made it so their seeker played chaser – and she was not good in it- Sirius, the other chaser, spent half their time before the match flirting with her and now she was jittery around him. Unable to play alongside Black. Their beaters didn't know to hold their hands in order not to injure their captain – and now seeker- or do as he said and double it.

Such a harmonious team they were!

Now was the time to…

His eyes closed in pain, his shoulder felt like it was on fire.

He looked at his injury, and winced. He was so much occupied with Potter that he forgot he was high up in the air, chased by mad balls out for his blood.

He could already felt his grip weakening. Not eating and sleeping enough had its downfalls, ha?

He speed up, and was about to signal that he was ok, but wanted out. He saw Regulus hovering , looking worried and screaming at hootch to end the game on his behalf. He was so loud Severus could hear him from where he was.

"those maniacs targeted him and he is injured! You have to end the bloody game!""he is fine! He doesn't look like the hit was so bad!"

As if he would let those red wearing idiots to get the satisfaction of seeing pain on his face. He wouldn't give them a reason to call him another despicable name.

And she was explaining that she…

And from the corner of his eyes, he saw Potter creeping out, going for the..

Fuck! The snitch!

He could let the man-boy getting the snitch!

It didn't matter that Slytherin would won the game, and the cup if Potter bragged that he stole the sodding ball right under his nose.

So he speed up , going faster and faster. He blocked the pain, blocked the world, blocked everyone.

He had to get it.

Frustrated by his slower rate, he kicked up again, and he saw there was nothing he could do.

Potter would get it, and potter would get Lily, and Potter got friends and fame and fortune and Severus never had anything but himself.

"fuck it"

He still hadn't got over Lily. He knew it, and Regulus knew it, and Potter knew it.

Every bloody busy body in the school knew, and Lily didn't .

Who knew what her stupid half-brained friends told her? She didn't know the first things about the difference between Dark magic and Black magic, or that not every sodding ritual needing blood didn't mean certain doom.

And she going get eaten. All she had, was her friends and family. Adoring her, cherishing her. All her teachers complimenting her, telling she would go far. Boys chasing after her, telling they would give her the world.

She didn't know the first thing about the REAL world. The unforgiving world of magic that didn't see her like a person, but like a breeding factory. She didn't know how Purebloods, or paternal Half bloods saw her. Those who had money to support her, those she was likely to fall into their arms.

That after getting a child out of her, they didn't give two cents if she lived or died. Elves would take care of the child, and they would be free to take a mistress or two as long as they didn't reproduce, all the while she wasn't allowed to have male friends at all.

Not allowed to work. Not allowed to choose her own wardrobe.

And they would choose her, since it was rumored that they could get stronger heirs by marrying into muggle borns.

Stupid. Grindelwald was the single most powerful wizard of their time, the biggest after Merlin if Dumbledorians didn't throw a fit, and he was pureblood. It was just that certain people's magic didn't align with each other.

Even if she didn't , there were few jobs for her in ministry, and fewer masters who would take her as apprentice.

Less said about the muggleborns the better.

Or no-maj , the weirdest shit ever Americans invented, as Regulus had started to call them.

They wanted power, and they couldn't hold it over her, their magic. They would be torn over magic or non-magical world, and in this climate, they wouldn't choose magic and war and blood. Lil's would choose to fight, and no-one in their right mind would.

Real life wouldn't give her points, or forgive her if she made a mistake.

And he had heard that she was the only one who said anything about him being called a pet.

"he is too proud for it too happen" and banned the topic in the tower.

And severus had spent so many years thinking of her and no-one else that he just couldn't give her up that easily.

Maybe if he showed her how Potter was a good for nothing brat, a vengeful bully and a thoughtless moronic idiot, she would come back.

And he would have all he wanted in the world. Mom and Lily and Reg.

So he couldn't let Potter get the snitch.

He inhaled.

Pain was nothing.

He had been dabbling with a charm, the levitating charm for a bit. He ended up making the damned levi corpus that was used against him, but there were other things too.

One was a nameless, wordless spell, that he found in a book about Quidditch of all things. The spell to make brooms fly, the original spell.

And he learnt that, and changed it and practiced it. He could fly for a short time without broom.

And he had to let go of the broom. His shoulder throbbed in pain, he had made it worse by putting pressure on it. He was losing his grip and the pain was semi blinding him.

His head hurt. He was feeling light headed.His eyes didn't see but shadows.

So maybe he could throw himself and break the fall by using the spell. He would be faster in getting to the snitch too.

He let go.

Lily Pov

Ever after the feast, she was feeling off.

Something was not right. Sometimes, she would look at her potion book and feel sad. Some times she would look at the slytherin table and look for Snape, even though there was nothing between them.

Or was there something she couldn't remember?

They were friends, and now they were not.

But then why she felt they had been more? That there was things she didn't know?

For God sake there couldn't be! She had married James, had a child with him and came back in time to save them all! The only thing Albus wanted was for Snape to become a spy for his life debt to James.

Nothing else!

And her heart did that flip whenever she thought like that.

She had been dragged to the game by her girls, and she was regretting it.

James was throwing a feat, Gryffindor was losing both by its own team incompetence and the slyness of Slytherins.

And she was bored. Honestly what was the use of this death trap they called game?

She wondered if the plan was Snape's, and he wanted to get back at James for annoying him. And james had insisted on playing seeker to get back at his rival.

Boys, really.

Severus was thriving, James was fucking it up by seconds.

And suddenly Severus was hit and he staggered, but kept on circling the field. The other Black boy was shouting in Hootch's ear to end it already, and she didn't want to.

Game was semi in pause, then James zoomed in and kicked his broom.

The snitch maybe?

Severus did the impossible. He was keeping up with Potter, holding his broom one handed.

Only a second apart.

She could tell that James was going to get the golden ball, even if Gryffindor was trumped. There was no way the green tied team hadn't won the cup with their performance, 900 points was enough to say they won and don't hold any other game through the year at all.

Half of was their technique, half of it was James splitting the team for his own gain – whatever he thought it was. Their seeker turned chaser couldn't score, Sirius was getting angry and losing it, maybe seeing his brother playing in the same spot against him, James was half lucky in dodging bludgers, and the team didn't know what to do.

And slytherin scored.

And scored.

So she understood James wanting to at least get the snitch.

Then she saw that Severus lost his grip.

The broom fled without its flyer.

He was falling.

And falling.

But somehow he was floating too?

And he was again, falling.

Forgetting about the game, the rivalry, the end of their friendship she screamed his name.

Regulus Pov

He loved how Severus plan has worked.

He loved how frustrated Sirius was, when he was scoring left, right and center and playing with his fellow chaser in harmony, when Sirius couldn't even get close to the poor girl who was his partner.

Severus was better than good in goading Potter and dodging. Maybe he would play chaser all the time to his seeker.

And crack!

He jinxed it.

Severus was hit with a bludger, and from the way he was flying, Regulus could tell things were not good. He couldn't hold it for so long.

If this stupid bint could see that!

"I know what I am talking about! I was playing Quidditch since I could stand! You are blind! Look at his grip! He must be dazed and confused! For melin's, at the speed and angle of the bludger, his shoulder is in bad shape!"

He saw Severus getting more speed. His eyes widened in shock.

Seriously? What he had in that head instead of brain! Cotton?

He could see him trying to use the trick they spoke about , one time, only one time! In jest!

" so it is like this, one would throw themselves out and the other one would get him. Mind you, they have to agree on it before the game, and they have to fly close and.."

"its stupid!"

"its not!"

And the same boy who said Reggie was stupid , even thinking about the technique was going to pull it off.

The sodding hypocrite.

So Regulus used all his might, all his lessons drilled into him and took flight.

"come on come on!"

His heart race was through the roof, his blood pressure not that far.

And didn't stop until he had his hand grasped in his.

"you bloody idiotic fucker!"

Cursing. Regulus Black cursing in public.

"I hate you you shit for brains!"

They were lucky. They were lucky Reg had gotten rid of the speed limit on his broom this summer. They were lucky Severus weighed nothing.

He didn't stop cursing until he had pulled up the boy and sat him in front of his broom.

"you horrible dog! I would hit you if you weren't already hit by a bludger! I told you that you are not used to fly so fast and you will get dizzy! You silly cur!"

Severus stayed silent.

"just ..for what? A bloody tiny little.."

And then he smiled. Raising his non-injured hand and opening his fist.

" this bloody tiny little thing you mean?" and he saw the golden snitch fluttering.

Regulus slapped him.