Disclaimer: If I was JK Rowling, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction. I am just a fan with a very healthy Harry Potter obsession. I own nothing.

He has no idea where he is.

All he remembers is that accursed hand strangling him, the agony in his lungs -hell, his entire body- becoming unbearable, and then-

He's guessing that he's dead.

Looking around, he sees that he's in a seemingly endless white room.

He tries to find a way out. He walks for what seems like hours, but he doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. Finally, he gives up and sits on the floor. It's neither warm nor cold.

He wonders if he'll have to stay here for the rest of his-well, not life, he was dead, wasn't he? For the rest of his afterlife? For the rest of eternity?

He hopes not. That would be a bit of an anti-climatic end to his death. Strangled while his former best friend's son tried to save his life, only to be stranded in an empty room forever.

"Hello. It's been a while."

He recognizes the voice. He hasn't heard it for almost sixteen years, but he recognizes it nonetheless.

He turns to see Lily Potter looking at him with a sad expression. Or maybe an angry one. Or maybe a bit of both.

He says the first thing that comes to mind. "Don't hurt me."

Lily smiles. Whether it's a menacing or sad smile, he can't tell.

"I can't," she says simply. He takes a closer look at her, and sees what he had missed before. A shimmering, almost completely transparent barrier, dividing them.

"Oh," he says, very lamely. What do you say to someone who's death you caused, anyway?

"You want to know what's going to happen now." It's not a question, it's a statement.

"Yes," he admits.

But she doesn't tell him. Instead, she starts with something else.

"I know why you did it."

He doesn't need to ask her what she means. It's as clear as day.

"You wanted power. You wanted safety. Did you get any of those things?"

She's right. He hadn't gained power, but had been kicked around and forced to run humiliating errands. And as for safety... Well, the fact that he's here proves that he hadn't gained any measure of safety.

"We could have given you those things."

He doesn't want to look at her anymore, but he can't take his eyes off her.

"But I know what you wanted most of all. You wanted to be remembered," she says. "And don't try to deny it. You can't lie here."

Again, she's right. His mouth is open, but no words are coming out.

Yes. He had wanted to be remembered. In his childhood, he had always been the nobody, the tagalong, the good-for-nothing. He had wanted to be remembered for something, something big, like all his friends.

Someone is walking towards Lily. Someone who looks like-

"That's me!" he says. Then he frowns. "That's not how I look like now."

Now he was a shrunken, miserable looking human with a missing hand. This version of him looks about twenty years younger, fuller.

Then a more pressing question comes to him. "How is that me? I'm me!"

"This isn't you. This is the you that could have been. This you is married and has four children, three boys and a daughter."

Three dark-haired little boys appear behind the other him, along with

a small girl.

"This you is godfather to my third child."

Another Lily appears. With her is James, who's holding a baby. Next to him is Harry, who looks about seventeen, holding a little boy's hand.

"This you hangs out with Sirius and Remus every Saturday."

Now they were there, too. Sirius, looking as though he'd never been to Azkaban. Remus, who looked healthy and had less scars.

"This you is remembered as the greatest hero of the war. This you stood up to him and won."

They are all at the barrier. Standing there, looking at him. He wants to run, but his feet are rooted to the ground.

"They don't exist. They are the ghosts of the could-have-been future, a future you destroyed."

Her voice is cold, so cold.

"You are not remembered down there."

Suddenly, he sees Lucius Malfoy kick his body aside as he inspects the cellar in which he had died.

"You are forgotten."

Now he is being buried in the dead of the night in the middle of a forest by one of Malfoy's servants. His grave is unmarked.

He turns to Lily. "Make it stop," he begs her.

"I can't," she repeats. "And even if I could, I wouldn't. I couldn't make Harry's cries stop. You don't deserve that I stop this."

The words cut deep, and he has no defence.

The walls of the room turn black.

Then, all the phantoms at the barrier walk through it.

He instinctively raises his hands over his head to shield himself, but they don't do anything to him. They just stare.

"You will sit here. You will sit here, and watch how everyone down there forgets you. You will sit here with them."

He can't speak. The power of speech, it seems, has been taken from him.

"Goodbye."

And then she's gone.

He stays there, watching everyone in the world of the living, with the people that he killed watching with him.

He watches how everyone moves on with their life, but no one wonders about him. He sees them naming their kids after war heroes or dead family members, but no one is named after him. He is forgotten.

Days pass- except that time doesn't exist in this place. He sees what could have been, and what has become. It all begins to blur. He sees someone talking with Remus' son, but that's impossible, Remus doesn't have a son. Or maybe he does? No, that's Harry. But Harry's dead, isn't he? That's why he's here, staring at him. But how does he have a son if he's dead?

Slowly, he is driven insane- except that he is dead, so how is that even possible? He doesn't know what's real and what's only a dream, but one can't dream if one can't sleep, so that doesn't make sense. He can't understand what's going on but he does know what's happening and nothing is real and yet everything's real, and he's both sane and insane, and time doesn't pass here but he's been here longer than time itself, and oh, everything's so confusing, and they are all staring at him, staring, burning holes in his body with their eyes, but he has no body so it's just their eyes-

Peter misses his empty white room.

A/N: Wow. That got a lot more intense than I meant it to. But he deserves it.

Review please?

Phoenixes :D