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Chamber of Secrets, June, 1993
Starling watched herself, from an eagle’s viewpoint, walk on stiff legs through a mysterious tunnel. The black diary was in her hand.
“Straif…”
Her body got further and further away. She could no longer trail along.
“Do-marnaid [he deceives]…”
Darkness closed in on all sides. She forgot what was. She forgot all. Except for the odd feeling of running along the edge of a cliff, perilous, and intoxicating. Yes, that’s what it was. Intoxicating. But, there was a voice calling for her to come back, why did they want her to come back? It was so nice here…Exhilarating…Yet…Serene…
“Do-marbaid [he kills]…!”
Her world shifted and lurched suddenly. Starling stood facing a full-length mirror. Her reflection stared back at her. This wasn’t right, she had just gone to sleep in her dorm. Or, at least, she thought she had. But, where did she end up? There was only her, a mirror, and blackness extending forever in every direction. A feeling of lightheadedness followed. Could it be a dream? She noticed she was quite pale, and that was scary enough given that she was also lost and amnesic, but then the horror really started.
Starling was fading. As she looked down at her arm, this much was obviously confirmed, but her mirror image was doing something completely different. It was mutating, similar to the grotesque effects of Polyjuice. Her skin rolled and writhed, then slowly disappeared. Starling could only watch, helplessly, as she continued to fade to the same consistency of a ghost, and the mirror reflected back at her the solid form of Tom Riddle. He smiled so evilly, it still managed to chill her evaporating body.
Starling grew weaker and weaker with each passing second. Soon, she felt she could no longer stand, that she may pass out right there and fall into the blackness. Yet, Tom’s reflection became clearer and more solid as she waned. An infinitesimally small sparkle caught her eye. Starling looked to the space between them, noticing a small, wispy thread of magic leading from her heart and through the mirror’s surface to his.
Her most terrifying suspicions were confirmed, but the betrayal still hurt like a physical blow to the chest. She knew now what he was doing, but how to stop it? The mirror began to fade, just as she had, and a surge of panicked energy hit her. She struck out at the mirror, hands flying through the glass as if it wasn’t there, and she grappled for Tom’s robes.
He froze, surprise evident on his face. “How are you—?”
She watched as her semitransparent hands, twisted in the material of his cloak, are encircled with a living black vine of unknown origin. It grew through her skin, along the lines of her veins, giving back life and color to her once-spectral form.
Straif!
With newfound strength, she pulled Tom as hard as she could through the mirror, and the blackness was chased away, revealing stone walls of a sickly green hue. Tom pulled out her wand, she let go of his robes, and they grappled for control over it. Stone grinded against stone. The giant statue of Slytherin opened at the mouth, and a terrifying hiss echoed from within. Starling knew what it was. Desperately, she kicked at Tom, succeeding in finally wrenching her wand away from his semi-corporeal form. When the snake had barely revealed itself within the dark cavern of its resting place, Starling aimed her wand at it and shouted, “Inimicus urit!”
The Fiendfyre spell burst forth and collided with the Basilisk as its head nearly passed the mouth of the statue, throwing it back into the cave with enough force to cause the cavern to shake. A high-pitched, hissing scream echoed around the Chamber as the beast writhed and burned alive.
“No!” Tom roared, enraged. But, he was now as see-though as a ghost. He could do nothing but watch.
The blaze filled the Basilisk’s hovel completely, resembling that of a giant furnace inside the mouth of Salazar Slytherin’s likeness. Starling scrambled for the diary and threw it into the pyre so it, too, would burn. Tom screamed again, this time in agony. His ghostly image was inexplicably licked by flames, despite the Fiendfyre burning so far from him. Like a piece of paper, he was consumed until there was nothing left.