The Whomping Willow Incident
Every member of the staff and every student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were convinced that Mother Nature hated them. And it was not just a normal sort of hatred; it was a vehement, relentless hatred. When February rolled around, the skies opened up and dumped four thick feet of snow on the ground, making it physically impossible for any outdoor classes to commence. Even Professor Kettleburn was not mental enough to try and get his students to come down to class when it was a three hour task to get the front doors of the castle open. The students didn’t actually mind having to miss a class of Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures, but it was frustrating to realise that they would have to make up the missed work in addition to what they were supposed to learn when classes started up again.
Another thing that had increased besides the bad weather was the strong feeling of enmity between James, Sirius and Snape. Sirius, more than James, seemed to want to cause Snape as much public humiliation as possible. At first, no one could understand why. As time passed still no one outside of the group of four boys knew the explanation for this. Sirius Black was furious with Severus Snape. For months now, James, Sirius and Peter had been sneaking out once a month to visit Remus in the Shrieking Shack and Snape was getting suspicious. He wanted to know what they were up to. He wanted to know why they were sneaking out. Of course, they knew what he suspected “ he thought they were up to something illegal. What Sirius didn’t realise was that the more he hexed Snape, the more Snape would insist on trying to figure out what they were doing.
Sirius was so infuriated that he would do anything to thwart Snape; he would even cause physical harm that was irreversible. This part of his anger he did not mention to his friends. He knew that they would try to dissuade him. James despised Snape with every bit of his mind and being, but Sirius doubted he would go so far as to do something overly dangerous to him. Remus tolerated Snape as best as he could without drawing a wand and he would not approve of what Sirius wanted to do. Peter… well… Peter just thought it was best not to hurt Snape if he didn’t do anything to warrant it. But Sirius wouldn’t stand for the Slytherin’s constant spying on them. Sirius could only thank Merlin for the Invisibility Cloak.
February’s full moon fell on the fifteenth. By this time, the snow had let up somewhat, perhaps by a centimetre or so. Outdoor classes still had not resumed, but the fifth years could care less. Their other professors were making up for this by piling on the homework as though it was free candy. Professor McGonagall alone had assigned them two essays and to practise a Switching Spell. Though this was nothing compared to the obscene amounts of work Professor Kern was handing out. Essay upon essay, the students couldn’t take it. The boys had even heard some of the Slytherins seriously plotting mutiny. James and Sirius had finally changed their tactics of hunting Slytherins to relieve their stress and instead simply said that the workload didn’t bother them because they knew it all. Every fifth year was reluctant to admit that the two boys were not lying in the slightest. They really did know it all.
On the morning of February the fifteenth, no student was caught working or lounging in the common room, which had been filled with ten disgusting Dungbombs the night before. The students either worked in their dormitory or ran to the library without breathing in the air in the Gryffindor common room. If they had no work to do, the students sought refuge in the Great Hall. The fifth year boys were in their dormitory, only they weren’t working in there either. Sirius and James were engaged in a life-and-death battle of Gobstones. James absolutely refused to admit that Sirius was going to win, as Sirius would never stop gloating. Frank and Peter were sitting on either side of the rivaling boys, cheering them on.
“Come on, James!” Peter cheered. “Just get your stupid Gobstones to squirt at Sirius.”
“It smells in here enough already,” Sirius commented, glaring at Peter.
“Well, if someone hadn’t thought to set off those Dungbombs…” Frank let his voice trail away.
“Hey, any of you could have stopped me.”
Frank, Peter and James exchanged glances. “No, we couldn’t have.”
Finally, James grudgingly declared defeat and disappeared to the bathroom to wipe the slime off his face, muttering mutinously the whole way. Frank decided to brave the stench of the common room below. He sucked in his breath until his cheeks were puffy with it and ran out of the dormitory at breakneck speed so he could go down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Sirius and Peter remained sitting on James’s bed, wondering what they could do that day.
“We could visit Hagrid,” Peter suggested.
Sirius shook his head vigorously, his face contorting at the prospect of going outside. “No way, Pete. We’re not going outside unless we have to.” He pulled his feet up onto the bed and pulled at a loose thread in his sock. “Besides, we’ll be going outside tonight anyway.” He glanced over his shoulder at Remus’s bed, where its occupant was still fast asleep. The full moon was taking its toll earlier than usual. Every morning over the past week it had been a difficult task to wake him up. He almost took James’s eyes out when James tried shaking him awake. Fortunately for the two boys, as though their friend sensed their eyes on him, his own eyelids fluttered open.
Remus yawned widely, his eyes darting around before spotting his two friends sitting across from him. “Morning,” he greeted them.
“Morning,” Sirius and Peter replied. “How are you feeling?” Sirius added.
“Dead tired.”
“You up for doing anything today?”
Remus shook his head. He would have joined them in whatever they were planning to do, but his whole body was rejecting movement in the worst way. “I don’t think so.”
Sirius nodded understandingly and jumped off the bed, Peter following, as James had just reappeared, his face free of green slime. James greeted Remus when he saw he was awake and joined Sirius and Peter as they went downstairs and hurried out of the common room. Sirius now wished he had not thought to set off those Dungbombs. Unless some divine intervention occurred, the common room would never smell the same way again. As they descended the marble staircase into the Entrance Hall, they spotted a familiar head of red hair standing next to a curtain of greasy, black hair. The head of greasy hair then began moving one way and the head of red hair began moving the other way.
“Ah, Evans,” James said pleasantly as he and his friends strolled by Lily. “How are you this morning?”
“Fine,” Lily answered shortly. She narrowed her eyes and turned her head to the side. The group was one person short. “Where’s Remus?”
“Sick in bed,” Sirius told her quickly.
Lily frowned. “That’s too bad. What’s he sick with?”
Sirius shrugged. “Dunno. Heard him getting sick in the middle of the night. He still felt a bit out of it, so he stayed in bed.”
“Oh… well, tell him I hope he gets better.”
“Will do. Excuse us, we’re hungry.” Sirius, James and Peter sidestepped Lily, who was smart enough to know that Sirius Black was not to be denied when he was hungry, and they disappeared into the Great Hall.
“So, what do you think we should do tonight?” James asked his friends as they took their seats at the Gryffindor table.
“I dunno,” Sirius said, ladling porridge into his dish. “Maybe we can get out of the Shrieking Shack for once and roam the village.”
Peter’s eyes widened in terror at the idea of leaving the sanctity of the Shrieking Shack in the company of a werewolf. “Do you really think we can take a werewolf out of the place?”
“Why not?” Sirius spooned the porridge into his mouth, wincing when he realised how hot it was. Taking a swig of cold pumpkin juice, he swallowed with great difficulty. “You’ve seen him when we’re with him; he’s calmer and easier to deal with.”
Peter still seemed uneasy at the prospect. “Yeah… but we haven’t been with him for too long during full moons. What if he goes back to how he used to be?”
James, who was trying to cut a particularly tough piece of sausage, shook his head, wearing a smile on his face. “I don’t think he will.”
“But-”
“Just relax, Peter. We wouldn’t let anything bad happen.” Peter did not look at all relaxed, but he made no further assertions involving this topic.
Remus left to meet Madam Pomfrey at the Hospital Wing at six in the evening. James, Sirius and Peter would wait a half an hour to meet him in the Shrieking Shack. When sixty thirty rolled around, they gathered up James’s Invisibility Cloak and left through the portrait hole as Phillip Murphy unknowingly opened it for them on the other side, coming back from dinner. The three boys could not keep the smirks of excitement from creeping onto their faces as they crept lightly down the corridor towards the staircases.
When they emerged into the Entrance Hall, they saw something unsettling. Severus Snape was standing at the end of the hallway, staring out of the window facing in the direction of the Whomping Willow. There was an odd, unidentifiable expression on his face. The boys could tell one thing, however, from the expression on his face “ he had seen something he shouldn’t have and they knew exactly what it was. What else could he possibly be interested in on the night of a full moon? Madam Pomfrey had long ago dismissed all matters of concealing Remus on these nights, as they had perfected sneaking him out of the castle in his third year. The boys hesitated; they couldn’t just continue on their way as though they hadn’t seen anything. They certainly couldn’t go through the front doors without Snape seeing them open, but there was no one there opening it.
“What do we do?” James hissed nervously. He beckoned his friends back into the shadows as he saw Snape glance up as though he had heard James’s voice. He pulled them farther back until they were in the darkened hallway, out of sight. He yanked the cloak off. “What if he doesn’t leave?”
Something flickered behind Sirius’s eyes, but it went unnoticed by his two friends. In his most casual voice, he suggested, “Go back up to the common room for about fifteen or twenty minutes.” He poked his head through the doorway and saw Snape was still standing at the window, peering down into the blackened grounds. “I’ll get rid of Snape.”
James and Peter did not question Sirius; they knew that he would successfully get rid of Snape and then they could go join Remus. They took the cloak with them and left Sirius to deal with the issue at hand. Sirius shoved his hands in his pockets and walked toward the Slytherin as if he had been heading that way the entire time. Snape did not appear to her Sirius’s footsteps, as he did not move at all. When he was directly behind Snape, Sirius bent forward and spoke right into the Slytherin’s ear.
“Nice night, isn’t it, Snape?”
Snape visibly flinched, but otherwise stood his ground. “What do you want, Black?”
“I was just wondering what you were looking at.” Sirius straightened up and walked to the window, leaning against the sill, looking as casual as he could.
“The grounds, nothing that interests you.”
“Oh, but I’m very interested in the grounds. Did you see something different?”
The sneer on Snape’s face widened when Sirius asked this question. “Yes I did, actually.” He joined Sirius at the window, still making sure to keep the distance decent between them. “Lupin was feeling ill today, was he?”
Sirius’s worst fears were confirmed. Snape had seen Remus. But he couldn’t let Snape see his reaction to this. “Of course he was.”
“Then why isn’t he in the Hospital Wing?”
Sirius’s jaw clenched. He loathed the boy standing before him, he really did. He wanted nothing more than for something disastrous to happen to him. Something dreadful… “How should I know? Maybe Madam Pomfrey decided to let him come back to the dormitory and sleep it off.”
The sneer went on growing until it appeared to be the only thing on Snape’s face. “I don’t think so, Black. I’m not a fool. This happens every month. Every month your friend disappears with some ridiculous excuse about visiting his sick mum or him being sick himself. I don’t believe a word of it. He’s up to something. The whole lot of you is doing something you shouldn’t be and I want to know what it is.”
Did Snape never give up? Why was he so invested in their lives? Was his own life so pathetic that he had to live through them? Did he want to get them kicked out of school that much? He had no business spying on them constantly, trying to see what they were up to when they were, in fact, doing nothing wrong. Not morally, anyway. Legally, they had broken quite a few laws. But Snape didn’t know that nor did he have any right to know that. Sirius wanted to show him for the last time that he picked the wrong guy to mess with. He was going to pay for all the spying he had done.
“And you’re lucky, Snape.”
Snape blinked. Clearly he was not anticipating Sirius to say that. “What do you mean, Black?”
“I’m in a good mood tonight. I’m going to show you what we’re up to.” Sirius couldn’t keep the malevolent grin from sliding onto his lips. “You want really to know where Remus goes every month? I’ll show you. The Whomping Willow “ there’s a passageway under it; you can get to it by pressing a tiny knot under the trunk with this massive stick lying a few feet away. Follow the tunnel; it’ll take you to a place you’ll find terribly haunted. You’ll find out what Remus is up to. I daresay you’ll enjoy yourself. You better run along now. Madam Pomfrey’s just gotten back, now’s your chance.”
Snape hesitated. He knew better than to listen to any instructions from Sirius Black, especially when the boy was feeling so violent towards him lately. But Snape’s curiosity was winning over his logic. With one fast glance at his enemy, he dashed down the stairs and out of the castle.
Sirius met James and Peter on the second floor, where they had stopped because Moaning Myrtle was currently flooding every available exit. “Why are you so happy?” James questioned Sirius, pulling the legs on his pants up so they would not get soaked through like his shoes and socks had been.
“I just made Snape a very happy man… thing… whatever he is.”
“I don’t follow.”
Sirius sighed in a way that suggested he was about to explain something to someone who was very slow mentally. “Snape wants to know where Remus goes every month and I told him how to get there. He’ll have a nice little surprise waiting for him at the end of the tunnel, won’t he?”
Sirius looked at James, expecting him to burst out into laughter or congratulate him on his brilliant scheme. He did not expect the look of utter horror that befell his face. “Sirius, what have you done?” James shouted, forgetting that a professor could hear him and ask what was going on.
“James, what are you getting so upset about?” Sirius didn’t understand it; James hated Snape just as much as he did. He should have been thrilled at the idea of the Slytherin meeting an angry werewolf.
“I’m upset because you don’t think!”
“I did think. I thought about teaching Snivelly a lesson for spying on us.”
“Sirius… you can be such a… such a prat sometimes. Didn’t you think about Remus, one of your best friends?”
“What about him?”
“I can’t explain this now; I’ve got to go stop Snape!” James broke into a fierce run, slipping and sliding on the wet floors, but not breaking in his stride. Once he had fully rounded the corner, Sirius turned to Peter.
“What has gotten into him?”
Snape knew better than to trust any information Sirius Black gave him. This tunnel had no end to it; he was convinced of it. He was convinced Black had just sent him on a wild Kneazle chase. He had been walking for at least ten minutes and had yet to see a sign of this passageway ending. Was Black’s plan to have him walk through this place for all of eternity? It certainly seemed like a plan Black would devise. Childish, yet no doubt effective. The only thing that kept him going was the desire to finally learn where Lupin went every month. Every month, since they had started school, the boy had disappeared with inane excuses about visiting sick relatives. Had his family inherited the plague? They were sick that often.
When Lily mentioned earlier in the day that Lupin was sick in bed, Snape’s interest had perked up at once. He had been putting it off for the longest of times, but not any longer. He was going to find out what that boy was up to and, most especially, what his friends were up to. If Lupin was really sick, he wouldn’t have his friends join him. That wasn’t the kind of person he was. He wouldn’t risk getting his friends ill with whatever disease he had. They had to be up to something else, something that, more than likely, was illegal. But if that was the case, why had Lupin been escorted out of the castle by Madam Pomfrey?
None of this added up.
Snape breathed a sigh of relief as he felt a gust of cold, musty air hit him. The end was in sight. Perhaps Black hadn’t been leading him on, after all. He quickened his step and then stopped. Unless he was very much mistaken, he could have sworn he had heard footsteps behind him, as if he was being followed. Shaking it off, he moved towards the cool air ahead of him. This mystery was coming to an end tonight. He was so close to his destination; he could almost hear the unlawful goings-on in whatever building lay before him. Yet he could hear something “ two things, actually. The footsteps behind him and a strange… was that growling? This was too good; those gits must have had a creature in this building and they had sent Lupin to care for it every month.
He entered the rundown, decrepit building and wondered, for the quickest of moments, if he was in the Shrieking Shack. Surely only one building could be this far away from the school and be this disgusting. He certainly could have just walked the length from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade. He took in the room “ the broken furniture, the jagged pieces lying uselessly on the creaking wooden floor and the pieces of the walls that were missing. Could Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew be destroying this place? Were they the source behind the alleged haunting? But no, Potter, Black and Pettigrew had not started disappearing with Lupin until recently, he knew that much.
The growling he had heard was coming from upstairs. Snape made a beeline towards the staircase, but nearly shouted when a pair of arms wrapped around his torso and yanked him back. Instinctively, Snape jammed his hand in the pocket containing his wand and whipped it out. He broke out of the grip of his assailer and spun around. James Potter. But not the haughty, arrogant James Potter he knew. This was the terrified, pale as death James Potter he had dreamed of seeing so many times. Yet this was for the wrong reason.
“Potter!” he snapped. “What are you doing?”
James’s voice betrayed the look in his eyes, but he managed to keep it steady, at any rate. “Snape, you have to get out of here.”
“Why? Worried about me exposing illegal activities whatever you and your friends are up to?”
“No. Snape, just listen to me; you have to get out of here.”
But Snape wasn’t about to listen to him. He shrugged the boy off and returned his attention to the stairwell. Only this time it wasn’t leading to a visibly empty room. There was a wolf at the top of the stairs, an angry wolf. And it wasn’t a typical wolf. It was a werewolf. The puzzle finally fell into place. Lupin…
James’s voice was no longer nervous, but furious. “Snape, get out of here now!”
When the werewolf began descending the stairs at an alarmingly swift speed, Snape didn’t need telling twice. He turned and dashed out of the building ahead of James. James slammed the door shut behind them and the two ran through the tunnel at a rapid speed. When they emerged into the dark February night, Snape rounded on James.
“Lupin’s a werewolf?”
“Snape, you can’t tell anyone.” James couldn’t risk the whole school finding out what Remus was because of the utter idiocy of Sirius and Snape.
Snape’s laugh was derisive. Did Potter honestly believe for a second that he would refrain from telling everyone he could? “Tell anyone? Of course I’m going to. What was Dumbledore thinking, letting a beast like that into this school?”
“Dumbledore already knows and Remus is not a beast.”
“Dumbledore knew?”
“Yes, I did know, Mr. Snape.”
The two bickering boys wheeled around to see Professor Dumbledore standing before them in the knee deep snow, with Sirius a few steps behind him. James’s eyes darted from Dumbledore to Sirius, who was looking incredibly uneasy. If the Headmaster had not been standing between them, James would have hexed his best friend into oblivion.
“You see, Mr. Snape, six years ago when I was looking through the records of the witches and wizards who were eligible to come to school here, I noticed Mr. Lupin was unfortunate enough to be bitten by a werewolf at a young age. No Headmaster would have admitted him into the school for fear of him accidentally inflicting his condition on others. Even so, I felt the need to do something about this. I spoke with his parents and they told me their son had long ago accepted he would not be able to attend school. Yet I saw no reason why he shouldn’t and I made the necessary arrangements for him.”
Snape said nothing, but the disgusted sneer on his face remained. How could Dumbledore do something so stupid?
“Because of Mr. Black’s foolish idea, he betrayed his friend’s secret, something he had sworn he would never do. I ask you, Severus, no, I order you to not reveal his secret. Mr. Lupin did not ask for this to happen. There is no reason why he should not continue with his schooling because of one night. If you do tell the nature of his condition to anyone, the consequences will not be light.”
“What about him?” Snape had finally found his voice. He was pointing at Sirius with an accusing finger. “He almost got me killed!”
“Mr. Black has been dealt with already. He has promised he will never again try to put another student in such danger.”
Snape still did not look convinced, but he marched towards the castle without any further statements. Dumbledore turned and followed, leaving James and Sirius alone.
“James,” Sirius began beseechingly. He felt so stupid now; he should have realised what he was doing when he told Snape how to get past the Whomping Willow.
“I hope you enjoyed having Remus as your friend, Sirius,” James spat. “I hope you enjoyed my trust, Sirius.”
“What?”
“Do you honestly think Remus will want to be friends with you when he finds out what you’ve done? Do you believe for a second that I will ever trust you after the hell you’ve put us all through tonight? You almost got Snape killed! You almost turned Remus into a murderer! Do you know what you’ve done?”
“James, I thought… I thought it would be good to get Snape off our backs.”
“So you decide to send him to a werewolf who would rip his head off without thinking twice about it? I know you hate him, Sirius, but that’s a little extreme!”
“I know it was!”
James took a deep breath, struggling to return to a calm enough stage. “You’re going to have to explain this to Remus tomorrow; I will not do it for you. You’re going to have to get him to trust you again. Personally, if he decides he doesn’t want to trust you anymore, I wouldn’t blame him, because I don’t trust you.”