Hogwarts Entire-Whomping Willow

A Whomping Willow was located on grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was planted in 1971 to disguise the opening of a secret passage leading from the Hogwarts grounds to the Shrieking Shack, a building located in the village of Hogsmeade. A very violent plant, it was known to attack anyone who disturbed its branches.
==Description==
Whomping Willows were a very valuable, very violent species of magical plant. As was eloquently put by Ron Weasley, it was the only tree in the world that would hit back. A deciduous plant, its limbs functioned as arms and any damage to them was treated in much the same way.
The tree could be frozen by pushing a knot on its base. During the Marauders' time at Hogwarts, a transformed Peter Pettigrew, whose Animagus form was a rat, would slip in and push the knot. Crookshanks also performed this duty during Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger's third year at Hogwarts. During the Battle of Hogwarts, Ron simply used a Levitation Charm to levitate a fallen twig into the knot which worked as well.
==History==
===Early history===
The Whomping Willow was a very valuable, very violent tree planted alone in the middle of the school grounds. It was planted the same year that Remus Lupin arrived at Hogwarts (c. 1971) to disguise the opening to a secret passage from Hogwarts to the Shrieking Shack. Lupin would go through a hole in the Willow’s roots every month and through a tunnel to transform into a werewolf in the Shack where he couldn't hurt anyone. The Willow was so dangerous that it kept other people from entering the passage and encountering the werewolf.
Sirius Black told Slytherin classmate Severus Snape how to stop the tree from whomping him, and somehow convinced him to do it on the night of a full moon. Snape was curious and it almost got him killed by Lupin transformed into a "fully-grown werewolf" at the end of the tunnel. James Potter managed to pull him out in time to save his life.
Students used to play a game, trying to get near enough to touch the trunk of the tree. A boy called Davey Gudgeon nearly lost an eye, and they were forbidden to go near it.
===1992–1998===
The Whomping Willow was injured when Harry Potter and Ron Weasley crashed Mr Weasley's flying Ford Anglia into it at the beginning of their second year. The following day, the Herbology Professor Pomona Sprout had to bandage some of the tree's limbs to try and repair the damage, possibly assisted (or hindered) by then-Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor Gilderoy Lockhart.
In 1993, Harry Potter's Nimbus 2000 broomstick was destroyed when it fell from the air into the Whomping Willow's branches.
In 1994, Sirius Black, in his animagus form of a large black dog, dragged Ron Weasley into the secret passage beneath the Willow leading to Hogsmeade's Shrieking Shack. They were quickly followed by Harry and Hermione, then later by Lupin and Snape.
==Behind the scenes==
*In , the Whomping Willow is located in the Training Grounds, whereas in , the tree is on a hill, far from the castle.
*In (especially the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube versions), the Whomping Willow is located within the boundaries of the Forbidden Forest. This is its largest incarnation to date as it appears to be nearly a hundred feet tall (as in the GBC and console versions, the player has to literally traverse down the tree itself). It is normally the first boss in the game, save for the PC version where it only acts as a hostile environmental element and in the GBA version where the tree doesn't act at all and is only part of the scenery. Its appearance however, varies:
**For the console versions where it is the largest to date, it has a single eye with slanted mouth as its face has its non-existent right-side "buried" into the ground with the roots, as well as a pair of hidden giant tree wood-hands used to attack Harry with (its right hand lifting the Ford Anglia and attempting to smash Harry with it, and its left being used to throw boulders; both hands may try to smash-punch Harry however) that only reveal themselves during the boss battle. Harry must cast the Knockback Jinx at its palms' open crevices when they reveal themselves in order to cause its knot-branch (holding Ron captive) to swing around, allowing Harry to jinx its eye and cause damage. The Xbox/Gamecube version of the arena is slightly larger than in the PS2 version, and has more fire-coloured lighting as opposed to a blueish tone in the scenery.
**The PS1 version however, is not as big, and its branches resemble hands with two-to-three fingers. It only instead has a mouth which is its weak point. The branches also will attempt to slap Harry as opposed to also using the prior smashing attacks.
**The PC version has its size fixed between the sizes of the PS1 and other console versions, and instead has it act as a hostile element. Just like the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube versions however, there is a knot-branch where Ron is held captive by the tree prior. Its "weak point" is instead a small spiral which Harry must cast Flipendo on, and the branch holding Ron has a small platform on it where he stands.
**The GBA version of the tree is akin to the one in the films, only it acts as a part of the scenery and there is no interaction with it whatsoever, aside from having the car crash into it.
*The Whomping Willow inspired a wizard rock band called The Whomping Willows. Often the band speaks as though it were the Whomping Willow. In one song, the Whomping Willow wasn't allowed to be sorted so it created a new house, The House of Awesome.
*The tree also appeared on the Marauder's Map that was included in the Harry Potter 5 video game box. It was drawn with the letters WHOMPING WILLOW, instead of with lines. The tree's appearance on the map is quite strange, because the tree didn't appear in the game itself.
*In , Remus Lupin immobilises the Whomping Willow. However, in the book, someone has to touch the knot in the tree.
*In the films, the Whomping Willow is similar to what is known in reality as a knotted willow. however, depicts a more traditional willow with low hanging branches and green curtains of leaves.
*The Whomping Willow and its attack on Harry and Ron may have been inspired by a similar tree and scene in J. R. R. Tolkien's . In that novel's first part, The Fellowship of the Ring, the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are attacked by a sentient tree called Old Man Willow, who objects to their intrusion into his forest.
==Appearances==
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*Harry Potter: The Wand Collection 
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==Notes and references==
Category:Foundables
Category:Hogwarts School Grounds
Category:Plants