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Everybody knows Harry Potter in the wizarding world, but how much do the wizards and witches knows about, for instance, the Horcruxes, the content of the prophecy, the Chamber of Secrets, or the event in the Ministry of Magic in the 5th book?
We know Harry told Rita Skeeter what happened in the cemetery in Goblet of Fire. Did Harry, Ron or Hermione narrate any other aspects of their adventures for public distribution?
How much is known by the normal wizards after the events of the seven books?
Though it’s not clear if word spread, Harry mentions Horcruxes in front of a crowd at Hogwarts.
“Nobody,’ said Harry simply. ‘There are no more Horcruxes. It’s just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good …”
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 36 (The Flaw in the Plan)
Harry said that in front of a silent, watching crowd, so it’s possible they heard and would remember.
“The crowd was afraid, and silence fell abruptly and completely as Voldemort and Harry looked at each other, and began, at the same moment, to circle each other.
‘I don’t want anyone else to try to help,’ Harry said loudly, and in the total silence his voice carried like a trumpet call. ‘It’s got to be like this. It’s got to be me.”
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 36 (The Flaw in the Plan)
The Daily Prophet reports that many in the the wizarding community suspect that the Death Eaters broke in to steal a prophecy, and further speculate it’s about Harry, and that Harry is named as the only one who can defeat the Dark Lord in it.
“Though Ministry spokeswizards have hitherto refused even to confirm the existence of such a place, a growing number of the wizarding community believe that the Death Eaters now serving sentences in Azkaban for trespass and attempted theft were attempting to steal a prophecy. The nature of that prophecy is unknown, although speculation is rife that it concerns Harry Potter, the only person ever known to have survived the Killing Curse, and who is also known to have been at the Ministry on the night in question. Some are going so far as to call Potter the ‘Chosen One’, believing that the prophecy names him as the only one who will be able to rid us of He Who Must Not Be Named.”
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 3 (Will and Won’t)
It’s mentioned in the Daily Prophet that the reason the Ministry may have suddenly admitted the Dark Lord had returned was because there was reportedly a break-in there.
“Details of the events that led to the Ministry turnaround are still hazy, though it is believed that He Who Must Not Be Named and a select band of followers (known as Death Eaters) gained entry to the Ministry of Magic itself on Thursday evening.”
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 38 (The Second War Begins)
There doesn't seem to be mention of other instances of public narration of their adventures, but some of the details were known anyway.
While Dumbledore only told Harry about the Horcruxes, and Harry only told Ron and Hermione, Harry did publicly reference them in his final duel with Voldemort:
"There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good."
While it's likely that most of the crowd would not have known what Horcruxes are, or would have been too distracted by the context to understand what Harry was saying, there would surely have been some people who could have surmised what was going on.
When it comes to the prophecy, Dumbledore assured Harry in the beginning of Half-Blood Prince that they are the only two people who have heard its full contents:
"There are only two people in the whole world who know the full contents of the prophecy made about you and Lord Voldemort, and they are both standing in this smelly, spidery broom shed.
However, the public was able to more or less guess about the prophecy, as Dumbledore himself confirmed in his very next words:
It is true, however, that many have guessed, correctly, that Voldemort sent his Death Eaters to steal a prophecy, and that the prophecy concerned you.
And, of course, throughout the remainder of the series there are constant references to Harry possibly being the Chosen One, whether it be Daily Prophet articles, whispers in the Hogwarts corridors, Slughorn bringing it up at his party on the train, etc.
The events in the Ministry of Magic at the end of Order of the Phoenix surrounding the prophecy were reported in the Daily Prophet:
Details of the events that led to the Ministry turnaround are still hazy, though it is believed that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and a select band of followers (known as Death Eaters) gained entry to the Ministry of Magic itself on Thursday evening.
The events in the Chamber of Secrets were narrated to an office filled with Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley:
Then he started telling them everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour he spoke into the rapt silence: He told them about hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realized that he was hearing a basilisk in the pipes; how he and Ron had followed the spiders into the forest, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the basilisk had died; how he had guessed that Moaning Myrtle had been the victim, and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in her bathroom....
While theoretically no one else should have known what happened, we find in Order of the Phoenix that at least some rumors had spread:
"And did you kill a basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore’s office?” demanded Terry Boot. “That’s what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year..."
While Terry specifically mentions that a portrait told him, it is possible that the portrait told other people as well, or that rumors had spread some other way. As Dumbledore so eloquently said at the end of Philosopher's Stone:
What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrel is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows.
In other words, spectacular events at Hogwarts tend to get publicized somehow.
