He opened his eyes blearily to find himself staring at the ground. Lifting his head a fraction and blinking, he saw that he was on the first of many wide, stone steps, all a bland shade of gray... was he somehow in and old black and white movie? No, that was ridiculous... and besides, the steps looked familiar...
His eyes swept the staircase—if that was what it was—and he saw at the bottom a wide, circular space of floor, in a slightly darker tone of gray. "No!" He could sense himself screaming, but no sound came out of his mouth; the room stayed quiet... deathly quiet... "No! No, I can't be here, I don't want to be here!" He hadn't wanted to set foot in this room, or even look at it, ever again. Yet, here he was...
In the very center of the room, there was a raised platform... a dais... "No! No, I don't want to be here!" And in the middle of the dais, there was an arch, with a ragged black veil hanging from it. The steps, the dais and the floor surrounding it were all made of stone, but the arch looked to be made of marble... It seemed strange that the veil was the only thing in the room that wasn't gray and toneless...
The arch was beautiful... even the boy, through his confusion, had to admit that it had a strange beauty to it... a deadly beauty. And the veil... the veil was intriguing. There was no wind in the room... yet it was fluttering, as though in a light breeze. "NO!" The boy knew that his shouts had turned to sobs now, although he couldn't hear them. "No, please, someone get me out of here, I can't be here!"
And then he heard it... although really, he supposed he'd been hearing it ever since he arrived in the room—how had he arrived in the room? And would someone get him out?—and he'd just been desperately trying to block it out until now. A voice... no, many voices. Coming from the center of the room... and it was this that drew him down the steps, though every fiber in his body was crying out..."No! Please, someone, anyone, please get me out of here! I can't be here, I don't want to be here, get me out!" But it was those voices that made him scramble down the stone steps and onto the dais.

As he got closer, one of the voices began to stand out more than the others... yes, the other voices were fading away, and only one—the only one he wanted to hear—was still audible, but only barely so. It was calling him... the voice sounded lower than he remembered it, mournful, as heartbroken as he was...but that would change. It would change now. He stretched a hand out to pull back the veil...
 "AGAIN, BOY!"
Harry snapped awake to find his hand stretched out in front of him. He gave a frustrated sigh and quickly rubbed his eyes, glancing at his clock... 1:23. Well, that was a long and restful sleep... He grasped his wand again before his uncle burst into his room again. "What d'you mean, 'again?'"
His uncle's face was purple. "This is your second call of the day! I was about to make a call to a very important customer..." Harry tuned him out and stared at the ceiling once more, sending another sprinkle of sparks out of his wand and noting that Vernon's voice sounded quite more subdued than usual. "May I have the phone?" he asked quietly after a few moments.
"Oh... fine. Make it quick, boy." He dropped it on Harry's bed and left the room. Harry waited until his footsteps faded before picking up the phone. "Yes?"
"Oh, you answered... hello, Harry." The voice sounded somewhat tentative, falsely cheerful... and too familiar...
"Hullo, Hermione."
"Er... gotten your list yet?"
"List?"
"For school."
Well, that's a bit more tactful than Ron was, I suppose. "No. We've only been on vacation for a week or so."
"Oh, right, of course... 10 days, exactly."
I am so glad I woke up for this. "Yeah, 10 days."
Silence on the other end of the line. "So, er... have you seen... have you talked to Ron lately?"
"Have you?"
"What? Oh... no, I haven't. Not since end of term."
Right, and my name's Neville Longbottom. "Mmhmm... Hermione?"
"Yes, Harry?"
"When you talked to Ron just now, did he tell you what we said to each other?"
There was a small gasp, then more silence. "Well... yes. Yes he did."
So nice to know I can trust my best friend. "Mmhmm. And I suppose you're calling to try and fix things?"
"Only... only if you want me to."
Damn it, Hermione! "And why would I want you to? What on earth have I or anyone done to make you think that I want you to 'fix things'?" He could feel his temper rising with his voice, but he didn't care.
"I—I don't know. Please calm down, Harry. I only want to help you."
"Well, thanks for the thought," he said sarcastically. "But I really can't see any way you could help me."
When Hermione finally spoke again, her voice shook. "I'm... I'm sorry, Harry. I really didn't mean to upset you... I didn't mean to hurt you."
Harry gripped his wand tighter still as another spray of sparks shot into the air. He felt slightly guilty for what he'd said... but only slightly.
She continued, her voice barely more than a whisper. "We care about you, Harry. Ron and I. I thought you knew that... we're your best friends, Harry. You know, don't you, that we'd do anything for you? Now don't you start—I know there's not really anything we can do for you right now. But I still want you to know that we care. Ron was—Harry, when he called me, he sounded... worse than I've ever seen him, or heard him. He sounded heartbroken." Her voice was a bit louder now, but quivering. "He said... oh Harry, you have to know that we both miss him too. I know that we can't know what you must be feeling, I know that he was the only one you had left... but Ron and I knew him, too. We spent some of summer holiday with him last year, remember? And... Ron was just sad. He said something about not wanting to show that to you or something, because you'd yell at him or think him weak or something... but I thought you should know it."
Harry had listened in silence as she spoke... it shocked him. He wasn't sure what to say, and he was having trouble processing everything she'd said... "So, what, did you two have a nice cry together?"
There was a long pause and Harry shot a few more sparks into the air half-heartedly. "Yes we did," she said finally, though she said it so softly that he hardly heard her. "Ron, too. We care about you Harry, so much, and we cared about Sirius, and... can't you understand that?"
Harry leaned against the wall and let go of his wand to run a hand through his hair. An angry tear glistened in the corner of his eye, and when he spoke again he failed to keep the quaver out of his voice. "Hermione, I do not want to talk about it. I appreciate what you said... I know you care about me, I know you're my best friends, I know everything you just told me, and I'm sorry I was horrid to Ron and I'm sorry I was horrid and am still being horrid to you, but you honestly have no idea... Hermione, you don't know. You and Ron, you're being... well, you're being like I'd expect you to be. Thank for that, but you just don't know. I'm still... I just... I don't want to talk about it. Not now, not... well, if I ever do, I'll know who to call." As he finished, his voice took back its sarcastic tone.
"Harry..."
Damn, Hermione, can't you leave me alone? "Look, I said I don't want to talk about it! I meant that! So stop trying to get me to! If that's all you want then I have nothing else to say, and if you've got a whole string of people lined up to call me one by one and try to 'talk it out,' you can tell them it's no good, all right?"
"I don't, Harry. That's ridiculous. I just thought you might want to talk to your friends."
"You thought wrong."
"I can see that." More silence. "Did Ron ask you about Quidditch?"
Quidditch seems to be everyone's favorite topic-changer today. "Yeah, he did."
"Are you going to go?"
"I don't know. I doubt it." He paused; she didn't jump on him about it. "And you?"
"Oh, I don't know either... I did have fun two years ago, but I'm not as big a fan as the two of you are, you know, and... well, it wouldn't be the same if you weren't there, anyway."
"Well... I told Ron I'd send Hedwig as soon as I'd decided." His voice had told her he was finished talking.
"All right... let me know too, will you?"
"If you like."
More silence. More sparks.
"Well... I'll see you later, Harry. Okay?"
"Sure. See you." There was a click and the line went dead. Harry stared at it for a moment, then dropped it and flipped onto his stomach, letting the tears come with the memories that had appeared again, so unwanted...

(A/N: Sorry if that's a little over-dramatic. Tends to be the way I write, and go through life as well. Haha. So anyway... hope you like the second chapter, I'm proud of myself for how fast I got it up... Changed the whole concept for the ending, so I changed the title... and I'm only expecting to have one more chapter, but you never know. I never know myself... mua ha ha...)