What was it like to receive special privileges from the Headmaster at Hogwarts?
Will could answer that: he could live in the Room of Requirement almost indefinitely, with a small library included; call on a House-elf whenever he needed one; spend every Sunday afternoon in Hogsmeade learning Old English from an elderly Wizard; and enter the Restricted Section until he graduated in his seventh year.
Those were only the basics. Will also enjoyed less visible privileges in many areas. Most importantly, unless Will became a Dark Wizard, Dumbledore would stand firmly behind him.
The Chamber of Secrets incident caused no stir at all. In fact, no one but Will, Dumbledore, and Snape knew what had happened that day. Everyone else only knew that Aurors from the Ministry of Magic had taken Lockhart away in connection with several cases.
Before long, students whose families had ties to the Ministry of Magic began spreading the news that Lockhart was a fraud.
The Ministry of Magic soon issued a statement: Lockhart had been arrested for fraud and for tampering with other Wizards' memories. His books were stitched together from other people's real experiences. He was a plagiarist who had used spells to attack other Wizards.
Reporters from the Daily Prophet followed up on Lockhart's confession and finally found the Wizards who had truly lived those great adventures. They were sorely disappointed. One was an old Wizard blind in one eye; another was an old witch whose face was more wrinkled than tree bark; another was a poor Wizard forced to live in darkness after a Vampire attack.
None of them remembered Lockhart. A few of the unfortunate ones had even forgotten what they themselves had done. They were the real protagonists of Lockhart's early books, written before he had mastered the Memory Charm.