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"Only Hannah had managed to notice that anything was wrong, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who knew Susan more than her. Even Hannah had just thought she was stressed. A lot had happened, and Susan was… keeping everything bottled up." Harry said.
"You seem to know a lot about what's been going on, even how to find the Chamber when none of us had managed to do so. Care to explain?" Flitwick asked. There was no accusation in his voice, there was no way to think that Harry would set all of this up, especially with how injured he had become in the process. It was a miracle he had survived, and if he wasn't the person the most affected, he was high up on the list. His best friends were taken hostage or petrified by the events, himself existing on death's door for several days.
"It started on Halloween. I had heard something, now I know it's the Basilisk, talking about killing something. I'm a Parseltongue, I didn't know what that was before all of this, although I did know I could talk to snakes. That's when we came across Ms. Norris. From there, there was nothing until the attack on Colin Creevey and Nearly-Headless Nick. Susan told us about this diary she had found with her things, and when she wrote it in it, it wrote back. She thought it was just a mild personality enchantment, like the mirrors Padma and Parvati have, and just accepted it as a gift you had given her to help her have a confidant for things she didn't feel comfortable sharing with anyone. That diary turned out to belong to Tom Riddle, a Hogwarts student from the forties who eventually became Voldemort. He had somehow put his consciousness into the diary, and was using it to control Susan. She was worried that if we went to Dumbledore, that she'd be blamed for the attacks, even though she wasn't the one in control of her actions, so we brainstormed how to stop them. We eventually figured out that the monster had to be a Basilisk, and were researching how to deal with them, as well as how it was moving through the castle undetected. Hermione and Luna found out that it was using the expanding pipes to move through the castle, but didn't get to tell us about it before they were petrified. I started trying to track down the Basilisk, not thinking really about what I would do when I found it. Padma, Daphne, and Susan had figured out the last pieces of the puzzle to find where the Chamber was, and when Padma came to tell me, Hannah told us Susan was missing. Then there was the message on the wall that said that she would die in the chamber, and so Padma and I grabbed Professor Lockhart and tried to go and deal with the Basilisk. From there we opened the way to the Chamber, went down, Lockhart tried to wipe our memories and claim to have killed the Basilisk, wiped his own memory by accident, and Padma went to take him away and get help while I went to save Susan. I fought the Basilisk, alongside the memory of Tom Riddle who told me he was Voldemort, and managed to beat them both and save Susan, before passing out and waking up a few minutes ago." Harry said. It wasn't a perfect explanation, but he was past the need to hide any of this information. Whatever happened from this point happened.
"Mr. Potter, I must ask, why not ask me, or one of the other professors for help? You had shown quite a distaste for Professor Lockhart, you've told me as much yourself." Flitwick asked.
"I didn't know that Lockhart was a fraud, just a goofball. You yourself told me not to underestimate someone just because of their appearance or demeanor. I had hoped, although didn't really believe, that his attitude was just an act. Padma, Parvati, and Lavender had apparently worked out he had lied about his accomplishments in a few of his books, and had used that to get him to help us." Harry said, squeezing Padma's hand that had found its way into his own.
"What is this about Gilderoy Lockhart being a fraud?" Amelia Bones asked.
"My sister, Lavender, and I had noticed Harry's lack of confidence in the Professor, and had done some research, hopefully to ease Harry's worries. Tracking Lockhart's appearances at events over the last decade had been easy, given how much he loved publicity. From there we noticed that he was at book signings and public events during times he was supposedly off in other locations. When we went into the chamber, he himself said that he had wiped the memories of noteworthy adventurers, the ones who had done the things he said he did, and then took credit for their stories. Apparently he was a master of the memory erasure charm." Padma said.
"I see. Now I suppose the question is how did Susan get the diary in the first place? I certainly didn't give it to her." Amelia asked, not expecting any answer.
"I think I know actually." Harry said, trying to sit up more in his bed. "Before this school year I was visited by a House Elf named Dobby, who was trying to convince me that it wasn't safe for me to return to Hogwarts this year. Mom had told me about them when we first encountered Dobby, and they're mostly used by wealthier families, like the Blacks. Mom didn't know who Dobby belonged to, but I think I do, and I think all of this was planned. When Susan, Hermione, Hannah and I went shopping, Lucius Malfoy gave Susan a book on advanced transfiguration. I think that Lucius had transfigured the diary to hide it in the pages of that book, and had the spell end after Susan had already packed her things for school, so you never had the chance to see it. Then the diary would take over her, and cause her to do those things. As for why he would do that, I'm afraid I don't know." Harry said, laying out the pieces as he had connected them.