"Fear: The Auror's Journal"
by Christine Anderson
aka Lilly Malfoy

I was sixteen when the Chamber of Secrets was opened. Like most of my classmates, when the first message appeared on the wall, beside the frozen but still living form of the caretaker's cat, I wasn't really sure then what to believe. I'd heard of the Chamber of Secrets, but my teachers considered it a legend, nothing more. And if the people I trusted and respected, even those who had grown up in the magical world, didn't believe the Chamber or its monster existed, why should I? Logically, the tale of the Chamber seemed to me to be mere embellishment of Salazar Slytherin's well-documented prejudices against Muggleborn and half-blood witches and wizards.

I was sure that there were any number of explanations for what had happened to Mrs. Norris, being the familiar of the unpopular caretaker, Mr. Filch, and even the most obscure spells seemed far more likely than an attack by Slytherin's monster.

I was wrong. I didn't realize just how wrong until several Muggleborn students were attacked, Petrified just like Mrs. Norris.

I'm Muggleborn. It's one of those things that I'm aware of, but don't really think about often- the same way I am aware of my height, or my hair color. It is part of my identity, but not a major one. I wasn't used to thinking of it as a major factor in my life, not after several years in the magical world. But suddenly being Muggleborn meant that I was in more danger than many of my friends and classmates.

I was terribly afraid, and much of my fear came from the fact that we didn't know then just what the danger was. We didn't know who had opened the Chamber of Secrets again, or what lived there. For just a moment, after Hermione told me she believed she knew what the creature was, I believed that I was less afraid, that my fear was fading now that I knew what I faced.

I used my mirror to look around corners, the mirror I had been carrying all term, trying without success to turn it into a Foe-Glass. When I saw the basilisk reflected in the glass, in the instant before I was Petrified, I realized I was just as afraid of the creature now that it had a name, as I ever had been before I knew what it was. This was something that could kill me with a glance. Anyone who isn't terrified by that thought is a fool, or just crazy.

The instant after I saw the basilisk in the mirror seemed to last forever. I couldn't move. I felt the mirror falling from my hand, but I couldn't catch it. I couldn't do anything. My blood, my whole body, went cold, numb, and then I was falling. The dark carpet in the hallway seemed to be reaching up for me, pulling me down.

The spell took effect so quickly, I felt myself falling, but I don't have any memory of striking ground.

I remember wondering if I was dying.