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"Did Susan make it out okay?" Harry asked, ashamed that he hadn't asked about her first.
"Magically exhausted, and scared out of her mind, and a few scrapes on her knees, but otherwise perfectly fine. She made a full physical recovery after a day, although she's been doing some counseling with Madame Pomfrey about the experience. She came clean, told Dumbledore, Pomfrey, Sprout, and Flitwick everything, about the diary, it controlling her in the night, your crusade to find the creature, all of it. They hadn't wanted me there, but Susan demanded that I be allowed to stay. I was a part of this, and knew all of it already. Called me a hero for going to save her, although I didn't do much of anything."
"What are you talking about? You did great! How were we supposed to know that Lockhart was lying about more than just exactly how the events in his books went down. The man fooled the entire wizarding world for years, but you Parvati and Lavender were on track to expose him after a few months!" Harry said, trying to make her see her importance. When Padma had mentioned grabbing Lockhart, it had made sense. Even if he seemed kind of foppish and full of himself, he did have a number of great accomplishments to his name, including being honored by one of the premier dueling leagues in Britain. One of Flitwick's earliest lessons in dueling was never to judge an opponent based on their outward appearances, and Flitwick himself had been an excellent example. The diminutive duelist was one of the friendliest kindest people he'd ever met, rivaling even Hagrid in that regard, but on the dueling grounds he was a vicious and ruthless opponent, never giving his opponents an inch to breathe. Harry thought that maybe the flamboyant attire and self importance was a mask hiding a clever duelist, even if perhaps he was exaggerating his accomplishments a bit. Maybe he didn't take down a horde of zombies, and instead fought of a handful. Maybe he hadn't vanquished an entire Yeti den, but had managed to subdue or even kill one. Harry wouldn't fault someone for exaggerating a story a bit to make it more interesting, although in his case it nearly got them killed.
"Speaking of Lockhart, what happened with him?" Harry asked, still trying to assess his situation.
"Turns out he had completely wiped his own memory of himself. He doesn't know who he is, although he seems to be able to recognize certain places and concepts. He's aware of what a wizard is for example, but not that he is a wizard. They took his wand from you while you were out, seeing if they can try to reverse engineer his spell to fix him." Padma said, leaning back in her chair. "After Susan made it to the hospital wing, Amelia Bones and some Aurors showed up to assess the situation. The Ministry had apparently been allowing Hogwarts to solve this problem on its own, but now that it's over, a full investigation into what happened and how it can be avoided in the future is being done."
"Wonder why they didn't do that before." Harry muttered, thinking about how useful an auror or two would have been when he had to fight a Basilisk with a hat and a sword.
"Since there hadn't been any actual deaths, regulations say that Hogwarts has to handle the matter internally. Students get injured through potions accidents and the like often, so the agreement between the Hogwarts Board of Governors and the Ministry of Magic was always that matters of student safety were to be handled by Hogwarts' staff until a death was involved. Last time the chamber was opened, Myrtle died, so the Ministry stepped in and punished Hagrid, but since even then they knew that he hadn't intentionally killed Myrtle, he didn't need to serve any prison time." Padma said. "Your memories will prove that Hagrid was innocent though, so that'll at least be removed from his record."
"Do you think Hagrid will get his wand back?" Harry asked, excited that his oldest friend might be allowed to wield a wand again.
"Unlikely. His old one was snapped, so even if they had the pieces it is more or less unfixable. Since he never finished Hogwarts, he wouldn't be allowed to use any magic anyway. Hagrid will be fine though, he's gone this long without a wand and he's perfectly happy." Padma said. She was right of course, Hagrid certainly wasn't helpless without a wand, and seemed perfectly capable of performing all of his duties without one. That umbrella of his seemed to be a perfectly acceptable substitute anyway.
At that moment, Professor Flitwick, Amelia Bones, and Harry's adoptive mother Andromeda Tonks walked through the door with Madame Pomfrey, Andromeda wasting no time in dashing across the floor and crushing Harry into a hug.
"Harry, I'm so happy you're okay. I was so worried." Andromeda said, as Harry could feel his bones begin to creak under the pressure she was exerting on them. Harry didn't mind though. He was happy to see her again.
"Mr. Potter, it is good to see you well. Madame Bones here wishes to thank you for saving her niece, and then unfortunately we have a few questions that will need to be answered." Flitwick said, nodding to Padma. "Ms. Patil, I will leave your continued presence here to Mr. Potter's discretion."
"She can stay. She was here for all of it barring the end, and was willing to accompany even then, had something else not gotten in the way." Harry said, looking favorably at Padma.
"Alright then. Everyone in this room is of course sworn to secrecy while this investigation is in progress." Amelia Bones said, her tone official, and not the simple, near motherly tone she had taken with Harry in prior interactions. "Wait.. no. I'm not here as the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, I'm here as Susan's Guardian. I just, can't believe she was hurting like this and I didn't notice." Her tone softened, before becoming sad.