Chapter One: Just Here

By Padfoot

I know what you're going to say. 'Why's this chapter called 'Just Here? That's lame!' But, I do have a defense. Sirius is just being introduced to here. Well, I think it's alright. Now continue reading. - Padfoot

"What d'you reckon that arch was?" Harry asked Hermione as they regained the dark circular room.

"I don't know, but whatever it was, it was dangerous," she said firmly.

- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Sirius was confused. How did this woman get here? Who was she? Where did she come from? Sirius was thinking of asking her the same questions she had asked him right back at her. When she saw the quizzical look on his face, she smiled.

"My name's Samara," she said to him. "Samara Karpoon."

"I'm—I'm Sirius Black," he stuttered, looking around at the dark images that he could see as his eyes adjusted.

He was in a small square room, and everything was black. The walls were black, the floor was tiled black, and a few chairs against the wall were black, too. There was a black painted door on the other wall of the room, it had a silver doorknob that reminded Sirius too much of his mother's home. There was a bed against another wall of the room, it was big and equally black, the only thing not black was its frame, which was the same silver as the doorknob. There were no windows, no candles, no lamps, and no light.

As Sirius looked around, he said, his voice shaking, "Where am I?"

"Where are you?" Samara chuckled. "You don't know where you are?" And when Sirius didn't reply, the little laughter on her face left it. "Oh," she mumbled. "You really don't know where you are?" When Sirius nodded, she looked around her left shoulder and sighed, as if she would like nothing more than for someone to come through the black door on the other side of the room. Her face looked a bit strained. She was choosing her words very carefully. "Well, I don't even know what it is called…" her voice trailed off, she turned away from him, looking at the dark wooden chairs in the corner.

"I hear things from Matilda and Samuel…." Then she looked back at him like she had just remembered something. "You're a wizard, right?" Her voice became louder, and more demanding than her usual quiet speak.

Sirius nodded, still confused. Who were Matilda and Samuel? Where was he? Is this what happens to you when you die…? If so, were Lily and James here too?

"Well then," she began, her voice quieting down to almost a whisper and turning back away from him. "I don't know what this place is called, but I do overhear other people hear talking. Another man here, Samuel, he calls this place Living Hell." Samara smiled, not showing her teeth. "You went through an archway with a veil to get here, right?"

"Yes," Sirius spoke, his voice cracking. Living Hell? Then he wasn't dead…

"The chairs in the room once held people. Evil people sat in those chairs and sentenced all of the people that live here—to live here. Before I actually start—what year is it?" This question came as an odd shock to Sirius. If she was not dead, Samara certainly had a brain—how could she not know the year?

"Nineteen-ninety-six," he told her, walking over towards the chairs so he could look at her.

Samara's eyes widened. "Really?" She took a step back from him. "Come with me."

Sirius was a bit hesitant to follow her. He had good reasons, too. He had just fallen through an ancient veil in the Department of Mysteries, and met a strange, pale girl by the name of Samara Karpoon. Who was he supposed to trust? Well, the only thing he knows is to get out of this place as fast as he can. The only way to do that is to look around a bit. Sirius stepped through the door onto the next room.

This room was also small, but rectangular and long. Its walls were mirrors that looked like they had never been touched. The floor was a mirror, the ceiling was a mirror. The only non-mirror surface was each black door at either end of the room. Although Samara walked strait through this room, Sirius took a bit longer. When he looked into the mirror, he did not see himself. He had changed, somehow, on his fall down to this place.

His hair, the usual long mass of scruffy black hair, had been combed and cut, so it went only a bit beyond his ears, and the grown-out bangs had disappeared. The gray torn, ripped, dirty, and frayed robes that he had worn for the past fifteen years had disappeared. Instead he was wearing a new pair of robes. They were, clean, completely black, and fit him perfectly. And, Sirius observed, he wasn't wearing any shoes. Neither was Samara, by the look of it. But she, unlike him, was wearing a long black dress that was embroidered with something around its hem.

"What," Sirius began, looking at himself in the mirror again, but was interrupted by Samara who had opened the black door at the other end of the mirror hallway.

"Welcome, Sirius Black," Samara spoke, "to your new home."

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