Sirius opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Very high and shrouded by shadows, a chandelier hung, seemingly floating in space. Its light, reflected by the many crystals decorating it, cast the lower half of the room in a soft glow. It was so quiet; he could plainly hear his heart beating loudly in his chest.
Sirius closed his eyes again and tried to work out why he was lying on the floor. Bright flashes and shouts echoed across his mind, followed by the feeling of the most intense cold imaginable. He sighed, looked upwards and focused once more upon the light.
After a short while he sat up and surveyed his surroundings. A wide, high-ceilinged rectangular stone chamber, built up on all sides with tiers of stone benches, occasionally interrupted by heavy wooden doors. He was lying in the middle of a rectangular pit in the centre of the room, completely alone. Sirius stretched out his hand to stand up and it rested upon a wooden stick, carved at one end into a handle. He had no idea what it was for but had an impression that it was important, so picked it up and placed in the inside pocket of his robes.
He stood up and dusted himself down. Turning around, he noticed a raised dais, upon which was a crumbling archway hung with a tattered black veil, fluttering slightly. Sirius stared at it, desperately trying to snatch at the memories, which hovered at the back of his mind, but faded before he could reach them. He walked around the arch, looking behind it but it was exactly the same, just a black veil moving in a non-existent breeze.
Sirius frowned and rubbed the back of his head. With no fixed idea of where he was going or what he would do when he got there, he walked to the edge of the pit, slowly climbed up the steep stone stairs and opened one of the doors.