If that were so, he returned to normal reality upon leaving the locker room. Teddy Tonks was waiting for him there.
"What do you want, Tonks?" asked James.
Ted stepped past him and up to Sirius. "You bastard," he said, and punched Sirius in the face.
Sirius staggered backwards, gripping a bleeding nose, and Remus and Peter had to catch him or he'd have fallen on his backside. James stepped forward to return the blow, but Sirius grabbed his sleeve.
"Doe," he said, "Doe, Progs... I deserbed dat."
"You did not," said James. "Tonks, I oughtta..."
"DOE," Sirius repeated. "I'b sorry, Ted. If you wadda bead de shid oudda be, go ahead."
"Padfoot?" James stared at him. "What's gotten into you?"
"She'd already stopped," said Ted. "You'd already won your goddamn Cup! There was no need to do that!"
"I doe," said Sirius. He straightened up. "I'b sorry. I did't thig thad would habben." He let go of his nose and looked at his hand - blood was running down his wrist. "I thig I'd bedda go do de hosbidal wig."
"You better not even LOOK at Cranmer while you're in there," said Ted threateningly. "I don't care how pure your damn blood is, I will take you apart."
Ted looked capable of it, too. Growing up in an unpleasant part of London had given him not only an atrocious Cockney accent but a very impressive set of muscles. Sirius would not have liked to face him without a ready wand.
"I'm sorry, Ted," said Sirius. "Really. I'm sorry."
"Not half as sorry as I can make you," the hulking Hufflepuff replied, and turned around to stalk off.
"Sirius?" asked James. "What's eating you? Since when do we apologize to the losing team?"
"Well, I cabe close to killig one of his players," said Sirius weakly, rubbing his nose. This was unreal. How could he be the only one who seemed to care?
James dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "My dad used to say that close only counts in horseshoes and dungbombs. I've never seen a shot like that - you should have been a chaser with that aim! Come on, let's fix up your nose and celebrate! I smuggled some champagne into our common room, and..."
"Leabe me alone," said Sirius. James tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but Sirius shrugged it off and walked out of the locker room without looking back. What the hell was the matter with everybody? Why were they congratulating him? He'd been acting like a petty, pissy little git and nearly killed a girl who'd never been anything but accomodating towards him when he'd given her every reason not to be, and they were congratulating him!
Well, arseholes to the lot of them. Sirius at least knew he'd done something wrong. And he wasn't going to go to a party and celebrate the fact that he'd almost killed someone.
He didn't really think about the fact that going to the hospital wing meant coming face-to-face with Rosalie until he was nearly already there. By then, his nose had stopped bleeding, though it felt unpleasantly stuffy, so really he couldn have turned back... but he didn't. He was going where he ought to go. He needed to apologize to Rosalie. And he needed to do it in person.
He stood outside the doors of the hospital wing a moment, then had an extra idea. "Accio book!" he said, pulling out his wand and concentrating on the mental picture of Rosalie's book of poetry. A moment passed, and then it came floating up the hallway towards him. He opened it to a random page and took a look at what came up. It was a poem by someone named Samuel Hoffenstein:
Your little hands, your little feet
Your little mouth - oh, God, how sweet!
Your little nose, your little ears
Your eyes that shed such little tears!
Your little voice so soft and kind
Your little soul, your little mind!
He shut the book. It was an inanimate object, he told himself, printed by Muggles who could not possibly make it able to taunt him. If he thought the page had come up on purpose to mock his suave self-image and the shallow jerk that lay under it, that was all in his head.
But somehow, knowing that didn't make him feel any better. He sighed, and pushed the door open.
"Yes?" asked Madam Pomphrey, appearing around a corner. "Oh, Mr. Black," she said. "What have you done to yourself this time?"
"Nothing," Sirius said quickly. "I just... I thought I'd..." there was just enough pride left in him to be embarrassed by what he was about to do. "How's Cranmer?"
To his surprise, Madam Pomphrey actually smiled. It was only a flicker of a smile, but a smile nonetheless. "She'll be fine," she said briskly. "The collarbone was easy to repair but the ribs needed replacing - don't worry, I gave her a dose of Skele-Gro. She'll be back on her feet tomorrow. Did you want to see her?"
"Yes, please," said Sirius, relieved that he didn't have to do anything so embarrassing as ask permission. He followed Madam Pomprey over to a bed cordoned off from the others by a curtain. When she whisked the curtain aside, there was Rosalie Cranmer, lying on her back. She was conscious, but very pale, and her brow was furrowed as if she were in pain. She turned her head slowly to look at Sirius, and seemed confused by his presence.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
He swallowed and sheepishly held up the little black leather volume. "I brought you your book." He could feel blood rushing to his face, and wondered how red he was turning.
"I'd've thought you'd be celebrating the Quidditch Cup," said Rosalie. "You had good aim to hit me from way over there."
Sirius dropped the book. "What?" he asked, as he scooped to pick it up.
"I said you had good aim," she repeated.
"But..." he said, and then couldn't think of anything to follow it with. He had to stop and think a moment before he managed to say: "How can youcongratulate me for that?"
"Well, it's not as if it was personal," said Rosalie. "You wanted to keep me from going after the Snitch again, right? It was a good shot."
"No," said Sirius, "no, itwas personal. I was mad at you... I don't think I exactlyknow why... no, I know why," he corrected himself. "I thought you were ruining my reputation. I thought I was too good to be talking to some Muggle-born Hufflepuff. I didn't mean to hit you that hard, I was trying to scare you. I'm sorry."
"You're the one who came looking for me," said Rosalie. "How does that make it my fault for..."
"It doesn't," said Sirius. "It doesn't. I was being a jerk, and I'm sorry. You tried to help me even when I was being such an ass, and... I'm sorry."
"All right," said Rosalie.
Sirius blinked. "All right?"
"Yes," she nodded. "You're forgiven."
"I'm forgiven?" he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Master Lampwright said I nearly killed you, and you're just going to forgive me?"
"That's why people apologize, isn't it?" asked Rosalie. "So that other people will forgive them? You said you're sorry, you look like you mean it, and I doubt you'll do it again. We probably won't even ever see each other again after the end of this year... I don't want to be lying there dying someday and think about all the people I could have forgiven for things and didn't. It's not gonna matter in a hundred years. Why shouldn't I forgive you?"
"Is this another Hufflepuff thing?" asked Sirius.
"Well, would you feel better if I shouted at you for it?" Rosalie wanted to know. "Sirius Black, you unbelievable bastard, I can't believe you did that to me and I will never forgive you and I'll hate you as long as I live! Does that feel better?"
"No," he admitted. "I've never met anybody who'd actually do that before. It's not gonna matter in a hundred years so why shouldn't I forgive him. Who honestly thinks like that?"
"I don't know," said Rosalie. "I just never saw the point of staying mad at somebody, I guess. My grandmother used to say that a grudge won't get better no matter how long you nurse it."
"I guess not," said Sirius, who'd nursed enough of them to know. He tried to think of something else to say, but couldn't really come up with anything, so he stood up. "I guess I ought to go. I'm... I'm missing the party, I... here's your book," he held it out to her.
"Thanks," she took it.
"Are you..." said Sirius. "I mean... if there's anything I can do to make it up to you, I know you said you forgive me but I don't feel forgiven. You could go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend and I'll buy you lunch. Not that it's a date or anything." He still did have that much pride. "It's... consider it like penance."
"You're Catholic?" asked Rosalie.
"No," said Sirius. "It's a figure of speech."
Rosalie propped herself up on her arms, wincing at the pain in her ribs. "You know," she said, "you keep saying you're sorry but you don't act like you want me to forgive you." Seeing his confused expression, she clarified: "well, am I supposed tolike the idea that it's so embarrassing to be seen with me that you'd take me out as a way of punishing yourself?"
Sirius hung his head. "I'm a jerk, aren't I?"
"Yes, you are," she said. "People laugh at you and your friends behind your backs, you know. The Marauders think they're such hot stuff, and yet their heads are so big they can't even get dates they're not related to."
"What?" asked Sirius.
"That's what people say," said Rosalie.
"But that's not why we go out with the triplets," said Sirius. "It's because they're the prettiest girls."
"Would they go out with you if you weren't their cousin?" asked Rosalie.
He sighed. "They won't go out with me now even though I am their cousin. And James... well, Evans just turns him down flat every time he gets near her. He's had this thing for her since the first time he saw her... way back in first year, he pointed her out to me and told me he was going to marry her someday." He looked at his feet again... his head felt heavy with a sudden and horrible sense of his own worthlessness. "You're right... we are total losers, and I almost had to kill somebody before I figured it out."
"You got a bargain," said Rosalie. "If I were a shrink, it would probably have cost you a couple of thousand pounds. You better go to your party, before they have to use a summoning charm."
"I guess," said Sirius. "I'll... see you around."
She nodded. "Madam Pomphrey says I'll be fine by tomorrow."