Siriuswas in a much more cheerful mood as the Gryffindor team stepped out onto the Quidditch pitch and mounted their brooms. Snivellus was going to get the surprise of his life; Sirius would have bet money that the little shit would piss his pants upon realizing that he'd walked into the Shrieking Shack, never mind finding a werewolf in it. And, rather more immediately, Gryffindor was about to win the Quidditch cup. Sirus stepped astride his Meteor III - no longer the fastest broom on the market since the IV had come out a few months ago, but IV's were so new that nobody at Hogwarts yet had one - and flew smoothly to join his fellow players.
At opposite ends of the pitch, James and Ted Tonks were already waiting in front of the goal rings, while the rest of the teams were arranged in pyramid formation at the centre of the field - three chasers across the bottom, two beaters above them, and seekers at the top. Sirius took up his position next to George Hohenheim, the other Gryffindor beater. He exchanged a nod with his partner, then turned to lock eyes with the Hufflepuff beaters: John Agrippa and Olivia Behr. Above them was Hufflepuff's seeker...
Sirius did a double-take and nearly fell off his broom.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded.
Rosalie Cranmer rolled her eyes. "Uh, I'm here to play Quidditch?" she said. "Same as you?"
"Mike Hastings is Hufflepuff Seeker!" said Sirius. "Isn't he?"
"He was until Christmas," said Rosalie. "He had to quit the team because his parents wouldn't let him play anymore until his marks came up. Don't you pay attention to anything besides your own ego?"
Sirius frowned, thinking about the Quidditch games since Christmas... Gryffindor had played Hufflepuff once in November - that would have been before Mike quit. And then... no, there hadn't been a Gryffindor-Hufflepuff game since. And Quidditch moved so fast that it was really hard to get a look at the players unless you were one of them. So yes, in fact, it did make perfect sense that he'd had no idea Rosalie would be here...
Damn! He ground his teeth. Of all the people they could have picked as replacement seeker, why did it have to be her? It couldn't have been more annoying if she'd done it on purpose to keep herself in his face!
Below him, Remus was waving to somebody in the crowd. It wasn't hard to pick out who - the girl was the only one holding a Gryffindor banner in a sea of Ravenclaws who'd chosen to root for Hufflepuff. Most of the school seemed to be rooting for Hufflepuff, in fact. Jerks, thought Sirius. They were just jealous because Gryffindor won every year. Hadn't their mothers ever taught them not to begrudge others their successes?
Master Lampwright, the flying instructor, stepped out onto the field with the Quaffle. "All right, boys and girls, he said. "You all know the rules... and I want no nonsense like in Gryffindor versus Slytherin last week - that means you, Mr. Black."
Sirius rolled his eyes. One little prank to make the Slytherin Keeper's broom tie itself in knots, and you were a criminal for life.
The flying instructor blew his whistle, threw the Quaffle into the air, and the game began.
After that, there wasn't a lot of time to think about anything besides the bludgers and the other players... and right from the start, things weren't going well for Gryffindor. The Hufflepuffs must have been putting in extra practice; only five minutes into the game, the Quaffle went sailing by James, who nearly collided with the rings trying to stop it, and scored a goal for Hufflepuff. Sirius soon felt ready to spit nails - they'd adopted a whole new strategy, one they'd probably been saving just for this final game! If something drastic didn't happen soon, Gryffindor was going to be flattened.
After half an hour, the score was seven to two, and Gryffindor was getting desperate. The only way they were going to win now was if Peter got his rear in gear and caught the snitch, but nobody had seen the elusive little gold ball since Master Lampwright had released it at the start of the game...
And then, there it was, sailing in from the Hufflepuff side of the field. Rosalie saw it first and took off after it, with Peter only half a second behind her. Sirius spun his broom in midair, watching the two of them zip around the field; Peter was faster, but Rosalie could make tighter turns. For a moment it looked as if the two effects compensated for each other completely... and then Rosalie began to pull ahead.
For a moment, Sirius' vision was washed out by red fury. That bitch! He'd been nothing but publicly humiliated since the day he'd met her, starting from the first instant when she'd had the nerve to come up to him in the library and ask for her stupid poetry book back, and now she was going to be responsible for him losing the Quidditch game! If she'd set out with the express intention of ruining his reputation, she couldn't have done a better job. Replacement seeker, his ass... she probably really had just turned up to annoy him, and...
And then it seemed that fate finally smiled on Sirius. He broke out of his internal rant just in time to see the bludger coming, and grinned... finally, something going rightin this game! He swung his club, it connected, and the heavy black ball went flying at the two seekers. They veered off in seperate directions to avoid being hit by it, and Rosalie tried to turn a little too hard even for her agile broom. She smacked into one of the towers and stopped there, shaking her head to clear it from a daze, while Peter righted himself and went after the snitch again.
The bludger swung around to follow Peter, which brought it right past Sirius again. He readied his club - he was going to finish the god-damned job and make sure Rosalie never spoke to him again... promises or no promises. The bludger whizzed past his ear, he swung at it, and it flew across the field to hit the still-recovering Rosalie right in the stomach.
People in the stands gasped... and then all other sights and sounds on the crowded, noisy Quidditch pitch seemed to fade away as Sirius watched what happened next. The bludger knocked Rosalie right off her broom and into the side of the tower with such force that the wood splintered. Towers being knocked over during Quidditch matches were not an unusual event - the spectators on the top were quickly casting levitation charms so that they wouldn't fall - but not by people running into them. The tower seemed to collapse in slow motion, each snap and creak painfully loud in Sirius' ears. Banners went flying and dust rose as it toppled and then there it was, lying in a heap of twisted wood on the earth, with levitated people slowly settling to the ground all around it.
The bottom fell right out of Sirius' stomach. He hadn't meant to do that. He'd only wanted to scare her... to impress on her that Sirius Black was out of her league and there would be consequences if she didn't keep out of his business... but... where was she? People from various houses were swarming over to the collapsed tower, pulling beams and banners aside to look for her.
"Sirius!" said James, and he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Sirius, wake up."
"Huh?" Sirius looked up, and found his friend grinning at him. "What?"
"We won!" James told him. "Peter caught the snitch."
Sirius looked past James at the field - Peter was sitting up on his broom, holding the little gold ball high. The other Gryffindor players were gathering around to shake his hand...
But not many people were cheering. The eyes of the spectators were all on the fallen tower.
"Mr. Black!" shouted Master Lampwright. "Get down here, now!"
Sirius obediently landed his broom in front of the instructor and dismounted. "Master," he said, "I didn't mean to, I..."
"Silence!" Master Lampwright held a long finger under Sirius' nose. "That, Mr. Black, is the most absolutely disgusting thing I have ever seen you do! Or did you simply not notice that she had already collided with the beam once and was dizzy? She wasn't even within the bounds of the playing field, and she certainly wasn't after the snitch! You're lucky this is the last game of your last year, or you'd be suspended from Quidditch for the rest of your time at Hogwarts!"
"I'm sorry," said Sirius.
Somebody had pulled Rosalie out of the wreckage, and Madam Pomphrey was running to see her. There was blood on the girl's face, and one arm was hanging at a horrible angle... her collarbone was broken.
"What in Merlin's name made you do that?" asked Master Lampwright.
"I..." said Sirius. What had it been? He'd been angry with her for being in the game... but how stupid was it to think she'd done it to annoy him? He'd been angry with her for embarrassing him... but he was the one who'd gone to her for help finding a poem for Andy. He'd been angry because she came up to him in the library... but he was the one who'd asked her if she had a date, and come to that, he was the one who'd gone into the Room of Requirement and found the book in the first place.
"Well?" the instructor demanded.
"I'm sorry," said Sirius.
"You're going to be sorrier," said Master Lampwright. "You'll be serving detention for the rest of the year if I have anything to say about it."
"Yes, Master Lampwright," said Sirius.
The rest of the Gryffindor team had landed behind him, and now James came running up. "Master," he said, "we're not going to have to forfeit the game, are we?"
Master Lampwright had to think about it. "No," he said. "Nobody broke the rules of Quidditch... just the rules of human decency."
Sirius hung his head. When he dared glance up, he saw Madam Pomphrey kneeling over Rosalie, listening to her heartbeat. Oh, Merlin... he hadn't killed her, had he? All the Quidditch cups in the world wouldn't be able to make up for that!
"Mr. Black!" This time the voice was Professor McGonagall's. "What in the world did you think you were doing?"
"I'm sorry," said Sirius.
"Professor, it's not that big of a deal, is it?" asked James. "He was just trying to make sure she didn't go after the snitch again. Right, Padfoot?"
Sirius' heart jumped - saying 'yes' might be a way out of all this hot water... but it was a way out he probably didn't deserve. Master Lampwright was absolutely correct - he'd been picking on somebody who was in no position to avoid the projectile he'd sent at her, he'd done it for stupid reasons having nothing to do with the Quidditch game, and if he hadn't killed her, he and she both were very, very lucky.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"Sorry," McGonagall said tartly, "Isn't going to heal a broken collarbone and four crushed ribs. Now give me your broom - I don't want to see you flying again until the end of the term."
"Professor, that's not fair," James began.
"Shut up, Prongs," said Sirius, and without a word of protest, handed his beloved Meteor over. "I'm sorry," he said again.
"I heard you the first time," was all McGonagall said.