Whomping Willow
From Harry Potter Wiki
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| Whomping Willow | |
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| Location information | |
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Guards the entrance to The Shrieking Shack |
| Behind the scenes | |
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- ""People used to play a game, trying to get near enough to touch the trunk. In the end, a boy called Davey Gudgeon nearly lost an eye, and we were forbidden to go near it."
- —Remus Lupin[src]
The Whomping Willow of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry grounds is a very valuable, very violent tree which was planted in a solitary location on the school property. Whomping Willows attack anyone and anything that comes within range of its branches. The only way to immobilize the particular Whomping Willow placed at Hogwarts is to press a particular knot at the base of the tree.
It was planted around the year 1971, the same year that Remus Lupin began attending Hogwarts. It was placed so to disguise the opening of a secret passage leading from Hogwarts to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade. This allowed Lupin to travel unnoticed too and from the Shrieking Shack, where he was able to undergo his transformation as a werewolf in privacy. This was kept a secret from everyone but Hogwarts staff and Lupin's three closest friends, James Potter I, Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black. In time Severus Snape also discovered its purpose.
In 1992, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley accidentally crashed a Flying Ford Anglia into the tree, seriously damaging it. The tree violently defended itself and nearly killed both boys.
In 1993, Harry Potter's Nimbus 2000 broomstick was destroyed when it fell from the air into the Whomping Willow's branches.
