Story Title: Breaking Reputations
School and Theme: Durmstrang - Plant Poisoning (look at how wizards and witches use plants as weapons and cures)
Main Prompt: Whomping Willow
Additional Prompts: [emotion] Fear, [action] Getting into a Fight
Year: 4
Wordcount: 1410
AN Globbernorms are my own Luna-creature; a noteworthy experience of Neville and Luna that did not get mentioned in canon
Breaking Reputations
The hardest part about being a professor at Hogwarts wasn't keeping hundreds of partially trained magical youth from killing each other, at least in Professor Sprout's opinion. No, the hardest element was staying under the Ministry's radar. Plants, like spells, tended to have certain reputations. Choosing to openly teach in a manner counter to the reputation mightn't get the tenured professor sacked, but it would open things to a level of scrutiny that would likely do more harm than good.
And so, Professor Sprout—alongside a treasured few of her colleagues—chose to stick to a curriculum that had withstood the test of time. Students with potential and interest, however, were more than welcome to meet after class for a less biased view for all that the conversations could be quite difficult. Neville Longbottom was one such student though it would take an incident in his third year for her to really see him shine.
"If Devil's Snare is an invasive species, why do professional greenhouses seek to cultivate it rather than let it die out?" Neville eagerly asked while carrying fertilizer for his favorite teacher.
"The Devil's Snare is an invasive species...in our part of the world, Mr. Longbottom. Its nutritional needs are not adequately met in our forests causing it to naturally attack all animal life around it to build up the detritus in the soil. Entire forests in the United Kingdom have been knocked off balance due to the presence of a single Devil's Snare. However, in its proper habitat in South America, it thrives without causing undue harm to the habitat around it. Furthermore, some of the native magic peoples use secretions from the vines in their remedies. Because it does have some medicinal uses and helps the ecosystem in its native environment, greenhouses the world over often grow them artificially so that they can be reintroduced to their native land upon reaching maturity"
"That's really interesting, Professor. I get that it can cause a lot of damage here, but why does it have such a bad reputation if it actually has healing properties too?"
And that is what it always came back to for Mr. Longbottom. If a plant had the smallest healing property, he wanted to know about it, learn how to cultivate it. Of course, Pomona could understand why the boy felt that way, but it didn't make these conversations any easier.
Pomona was just about to respond when Penelope Clearwater burst through the greenhouse door.
There was… an incident at the Whomping Willow. One of the students had somehow managed to climb the tree, and no one could get close enough to help her down. To make matters worse, some of the vines appeared to be tangled around her body. Several girls from Ravenclaw stood as close as they could to the tree.
Heart hammering a million miles per hour, Pomona could only pray that the young student would hold on long enough for her to be able to stop the tree's agitated movements. Never before had the tree acted quite this agitated. One of the Ravenclaws who had gotten just a little too close received a slice to her cheek.
The situation seemed to get a million times worse when Neville headed straight for the tree almost as if he were in a trance. Pomona flinched as an especially large limb headed seemingly straight towards the boy only to miss him by a hair's breadth. The usually awkward and clumsy student continued to go forward as if it was beneath his notice. Wanting to call out to Neville but terrified that such a call might break whatever connection was responsible for his bout of good luck, Pomona could only hold her breath until he reached the base of the trunk.
Standing directly in front of the knot that could stop the tree's movements, Neville yelled out a reassurance to his teacher before turning to the girl in the tree. For the moment, there was little Pomona could do without making matters worse. She could, however, get the students that surrounded the spectacle to leave, however.
Seeing the tree's limbs calm proved that this was the right choice.
Luna Lovegood's day had turned rather topsy-turvy. It had begun with the usual insults from her peers, and a Globbernorm had come for a visit in the night so that it could steal her left shoes for nest building. This was not in any way unusual for Luna though she felt it was quite strange that no globbernorms ever visited her when she was home.
Things had seemed to take a turn for the worst when her classmates started to make snide remarks about her mum. The ensuing fight left Luna weary and needing to get away from everything. Luna had needed a place to be, ideally where her tormentors would not come after her. That is what led Luna to the colorful wonderland that was Hogwarts in late fall. Remembering Headmaster Dumbledore's warnings about the Forbidden Forest, Luna had ignored the urge to hide in the brightly colored woods and turned to the Whomping Willow instead for protection. And what protection it was! The gentle giant had immediately seemed to encourage her to climb onto its tallest boughs while beautiful vines seemed to weave themselves into both a safety harness and a delightfully warm bed all in one go. Luna would have been perfectly content to spend the rest of her night in the tree had she not been found by her peers.
For some reason, everyone seemed to be most anxious for her to get down, even those who wished to make her life hell. Neville Longbottom was the only one who seemed unconcerned with her perch. It was he who convinced the Whomping Willow to calm down once the other Ravenclaws left. He was also the one who got her to come back to Earth under the promise of a picnic beneath the looming branches (this after nearly an hour of arguing with various authority figures on the best place for her to be).
"Have either of you any idea how dangerous those stunts were? Why, it's a miracle that neither of you suffered any injuries. Going up to a Whomping Willow!" Pomona humphed as she sought to explain to the children the foolhardy nature of their actions. It didn't help her mood that, rather than have this conversation from a nice safe distance, they were snacking underneath said dangerous tree. Rather than the apologetic faces of two students made to see the light, however, she was met with two very confused children.
"Whomp just wanted to protect me, Professor. Why would I stay away from a protector that was willing to stop the girls from my dorm from getting any closer? I love Whomp, and Whomp loves me!" Luna declared fiercely while hugging a nearby limb.
"Longbottom Manor has several Whomping Willows on the border of our garden, Professor. They're protectors; didn't you know? I've never met a Whomping Willow that I didn't like or who didn't like me after season or two. For all that they like to whomp things, a Whomping Willow would only attack someone who meant to do harm."
Neville's impassioned speech about her subject forced Pomona to come to a disturbing conclusion that night. Every word he said was true. Professional Herbologists the world over know that Whomping Willows are reasonably gentle plants for their size. Yet, Pomona had still stood paralyzed by fear at the sight of Luna in that tree. It would appear that she had unwittingly begun to believe the narrative that she taught the greater student body. Mentally shuffling around her lesson plans, Pomona decided that Monday would be Whomping Willow Day for all her students.
Four years later, those lessons would prove helpful to numerous students who sought to lure Death Eaters to one of Hogwarts' greatest secret weapons: the Whomping Willow. While far too many lost their lives during the Battle of Hogwarts, students who had the advantage of fighting near the tree would often have an ally who was more than willing to beat the poisoned ones into the ground or throw them far away like a pesky garden gnome. Truly, the Whomping Willow became an unsung hero that day, and in the aftermath of that battle, it acted as a final proof for her that staying under the radar was not what was best for students.