How to Kill the Whomping Willow

Note: Before you get all excited, THIS IS NOT REALLY AN UPDATE. This is the same oneshot I posted as a sequel to Dear Diary, I Mean, Journal; the oneshot was titled How to Kill the Whomping Willow. I have deleted it so that I could add it as a second chapter to this story (yes, the reviews were deleted too, but I did read through all 65 of them).

So, the contents of the following chapter are EXACTLY the same as How to Kill the Whomping Willow. I realized that loads of people who were waiting for an update to Dear Diary hadn't realized that I had written a separate oneshot sequel, so I added How to Kill the Whomping Willow as another chapter. Got it? Okay.

But, for those who HAVE read this before, I would be honored it if you just took a moment to read it again, just for laughs.

I MAY consider continuing this story. Maybe, if I get enough ideas to write another chapter.

This chapter was meant as a separate oneshot, so think of it as another "diary" entry by Draco. Therefore, the writing isn't as "connected" as it would be if I had simply written this from third person and not in diary form.

Some of the "Plans" at the very end of this chapter are derived from the ways to kill Barney (which I Googled for inspiration). But there are many different versions, I think, and after a while, everyone's bound to come up with the same end results, so I hope I haven't infringed upon any copyrights...

Last thing, and then I'll let you get on with reading. I know I haven't updated the Ten Labors in almost SIX MONTHS (well, before updating it today). Yes, this bothers me a lot. I wish I could turn into a vampire from Twilight and work at super-high speeds and get everything done instantly. Obviously, I am still human. Or rather, bunny.

Please check out my most recent story, "Harry Potter Buys Life Insurance"! It's pretty short and worth a read.

Disclaimer: How many times do I have to tell you? I don't own Barry Potter!

Okay, I'll admit it.

You were right and I was wrong.

There.

Happy?

No?

Sigh. Diaries are so hard to please.

But what's even worse is the fact that I'm writing in this diary again. Yes, of course I meant to say journal. Duh. But I have a very good reason. I realized that I can't exactly throw this diary away. Not because I'm emotionally attached to it (eww) but because I kinda… sorta… wrote in it. Oops. And ink is rather permanent (unless you're Snape and can erase ink by rubbing it in your greasy hair). So there is basically only one other option…

…I have to actually use this diary.

I MEANT JOURNAL!

Now that part I just don't get.

And you know what else I don't get? How could the two brightest students in Hogwarts fail at something? When you team up with Granger, doesn't that basically guarantee success in all intellectual endeavors?

Maybe I didn't have my lucky ferret-boxers on.

Crap.

I did not just write that! Erase! Erase! ERASE!

And I just know you are going to hold that against me for the rest of my life. Aren't you?

Well if that gives your demonic head something to ponder for the moment, let me tell you what happened. One day not so long after the… ahem, incident which involved me, Granger, the Whomping Willow, spontaneous kissing, and ferret boxers, I decided that the Whomping Willow deserved to be cut down a burned to a crisp in Snape's fireplace.

Why?

Because it had humiliated me.

End of story.

Goodbye.

So, of course I just had to enlist the help of Granger. Because she's smart, of course. It had nothing whatsoever to do with her looks. And eyes. And body. And –

Draco?

Yes?

Shut up.

Okay.

Oh. My. God.

I just talked to myself.

On paper.

Now back to the story.

After a few moments of heated kissi–I mean, discussion, Granger and I decided that we were going to cut down the aforementioned tree. With an axe, of course. I mean, what else could we use?

We borrowed a pair of axes from a broom shed we had made out in – err, I mean, stumbled upon, and set out to do the deed.

When we got to the Whomping Willow, it looked as if it was in a state of rest, so naturally, I picked up a rock and threw it at the tree to see if it was still alive. Yes, that was dumb, I know. But it seemed like a good, safe idea…

At the time.

I'm not sure what happened next, but I remember getting hit in the head with the same rock. Either I have VERY bad aim, or the tree threw the rock back at me.

Suddenly, for the second time that week, Granger and I got attacked by the Whomping Willow. What had I ever done to that tree? I mean, come on! It was just a rock! Who goes crazy on you and starts beating you up for throwing just one puny little rock?

The tree was oblivious to the fact that I was Draco Malfoy, and did not deserve to be attacked by trees.

So what was a guy to do?

I ran for it.

Screaming.

No, wait, scratch that. I most definitely did NOT scream. I was… erm… singing?

Never mind.

The point is, I ran, and Granger followed.

Later, in the comfort of a broom closet again, we… discussed where our plan went awry. Granger said it had something to do with the fact that we didn't bother to make a plan and that I angered the tree by throwing a rock at it.

I think it was because the Whomping Willow was PMS-ing.

Trees can PMS, right?

I must have said that out loud, because Granger started rolling her eyes at me and muttered something involving the words "boys" and "stupid" under her breath.

After that was settled, we finished our… discussion… still in the broom closet. Ahem. Anyways…

Tomorrow, we commenced with Plan A, since the previous mishap wasn't actually a plan, Granger explained.

Okay.

Plan A, in a nutshell, involved me running at the tree with an axe in my rage before Granger actually had a chance to immobilize the tree (the part of the plan which I kinda forgot about), so I woke up in the Hospital Wing two hours later with a bruised face and SERIOUS wedgie. Oh, that and Granger was standing over me lecturing me on how stupid I was. Yeah, yeah.

So, my failure to comply with the original plan led us to Plan B. 'Cause she HAS to assign a letter name to every single plan...

This time, Hermione held the axe and stood out of range of the Whomping Willow while I attempted to immobilize it.

Except there was a teeny problem with me messing up the spell ("It was a swish, not a jab!" cried Know-it-all) and getting attacked by the Whomping Willow again. Great.

After that, we gave up on the immobilization part of the plan.

Then, I had a brilliant idea.

We were going to light the Whomping Willow on FIRE.

Muwahz.

It was foolproof.

Or at least I thought so.

Then Know-it-all had to go around pointing out every single flaw in my plan ("You absolutely cannot go running at the Whomping Willow, start yelling INCENDIO, and expect it to burst into flame!"), which I didn't understand. Something to do with the fact that it was a fairly large and disturbed tree. And that there are wards on it that prevent it from being harmed by spells.

And that was how Granger and I ended up running at the Whomping Willow with a handful of Muggle cigarette lighters and kindling. There was no way that Plan C could fail.

But, as you know, there is always an exception.

See, Filch has no life… so he decided that he would walk around the castle at night trying to catch students at their love lives while contemplating his lack of one. Then, he kinda looked out the window, saw two people running around the Whomping Willow with fire while doing some sort of war chant, all the more noticeable since it was pitch dark outside (we were going for secrecy...).

Oops.

If it wasn't for that, our plan would have worked, I swear!

Basically, what we did was tie up little bundles of kindling that were magically enchanted to combust explosively when lit.

In other words, Draco Malfoy invented the Kindle-bomb.

Cue the applause.

And then, for the second part of my brilliant plan that I came up with all by me onesy, we were going to catapult the lit kindle-bombs into the air at the Whomping Willow in the middle of the night when supposedly no one could see us (I guess fire isn't so invisible at night, is it?) and thus destroy said Whomping Willow in a pillar of flames and explosions, BWAHAHA!

Hem.

It would have happened… but Filch (darn him) ran out of the castle and straight at us at the first sign of mischief while carrying and positively caressing Mrs. Norris in his glee.

And then the plan went wrong. Again.

See, it was really, really dark, so when Filch ran at us, he overlooked the fact that he could barely see the ground and what was on it in his haste to stop us troublemakers.

Granger hit me on the arm as soon as she saw Filch coming. I was about to launch the first lit kindle-bomb, but I was distracted and accidentally knocked the catapult a few inches off mark when Granger hit me.

Then, a number of things happened.

Filch tripped over one of our backup catapults that we had set aside for later use. (It was Granger's idea, not mine, that we should set up backup catapults! If she had listened to me and not be such a compulsive freak, we would have been fine without the catapults and Filch never would have tripped and… wait… that means that he would've gotten to us sooner. Oops. Never mind…)

So, anyhow, Filch tripped and threw his arms into the air like a little girly.

Mrs. Norris came sprawling through the air straight at my face.

I panicked.

I did what any other person would have done!

Do NOT blame me; I acted merely in self defense!

Ahem.

I…

I kinda… sorta…

I shot a kindle-bomb at her.

Oops.

You can pretty much imagine what happened next.

BOOM.

Major oops.

Filch went insane.

Granger and I got detention… for three weeks…

…where we contemplated the many uses of an empty classroom (Snape had severe bladder control issues and frequented the men's room) at eleven o'clock at night.

Heehee.

Eventually, the three weeks of detention ended, and Granger and I had come up with more plans for the elimination and/or destruction of said Whomping Willow.

Then, it came time to actually execute the plans.

Enough said.

Plan D: TNT.

Status: Failed. Had an accident transporting the TNT while outside of Snape's classroom. Snape not happy.

Plan E: Get a whole bunch of fake fruit, fill them with razor blades, and chuck them at the Whomping Willow.

Status: Failed. Razor blades ineffective against tree trunk. And we only had three of them due to a lack of sufficient donations.

Plan F: Shoot it with a machine gun.

Status: Failed. Machine gun confiscated by McGonagall. Detention.

Plan G: Launch an atomic bomb at it.

Status: Failed. Unable to obtain atomic bomb. Facing an inquiry with Muggle government.

Plan H: Lawn-mower it.

Status: Failed. Granger ineffectively explained to me what a lawn mower was. It looked like a go-cart...

Plan I: Make it acid-rain on it.

Status: Failed. Request for weather modification denied by Ministry.

Plan J: Launch dungbombs at it until it reeks so bad that Dumbledore will have to remove it.

Status: Failed. Has been enchanted to repel dungbombs and deflect them into the face of the launcher… which happened to be me.

Plan L (Wait, what happened to Plan K?): Wingardium Leviosa it.

Status: Failed. Trees do not Wingardium Leviosa easily.

Plan M: Send a load of rabid squirrels to attack it.

Status: Failed. Rabid squirrels were too… rabid.

Plan N: Smother it with Snape's hair grease.

Status: (getting tired of repeatedly writing "failed"…) Could not remove hair from the Snape. Too greasy. Lack of proper grip.

Plan O: Set Grawp on it.

Status: Had to abort due to lack of personnel (one of us ran away at the sight of Grawp, though I won't say which one it was).

Plan P: Fly a car into it.

Status: Cars do not Wingardium Leviosa very well either.

Plan Q: Drench it in liquid nitrogen and hit it with a bat to see if it breaks.

Status: It looked like a vat of steaming butterbeer…

Plan R: A black hole.

Status: …What?

Plan S: Drown it.

Status: Accidentally caused flood on Hogwarts grounds because Granger didn't have time to cast a spell to contain the water before I Accio'd all the water in the lake. Detention.

Plan T: Get a pack of hounds to pee on the soil around it.

Status: Lack of fire hydrant.

Plan U: Smother it in ferocious, radioactive termites. HA!

Status: Termites died in Muggle thing called microwave. Apparently, forty seconds was a bit too long.

Plan V: Write a formal letter of complaint to our Heads of House.

Status: McGonagall was unamused. Snape didn't give a crap.

Plan W: Write a formal letter of complaint to Albus Dumbledore.

Status: Dumbledore was too amused.

Plan X: Write a formal letter of complaint to Fudge.

Status: Received a signed postcard two weeks later. Managed to kidnap delivery owl out of spite.

Plan Y: Tell Fudge that if he doesn't make Dumbledore get rid of the Whomping Willow, we're going to torture and kill his owl.

Status: Got arrested for threatening the Minister of Magic.

And after that… we realized that maybe trying to kill the Whomping Willow wasn't the best idea.

Granger and I did, however, have a fun time. Which is all that counts, right? Besides, I managed to convince Granger that every failed attempt was worth at least a trip to the broom closet...

To discuss our future endeavors, of course.

But, as I pointed out, we still had one more Plan left before we were officially pathetic losers incapable of effectively killing the Whomping Willow.

Which… lead us to Plan Z.

Request the help of the Weasley twins.

There was no way we could fail anymore.

And if we did…

…it was their problem now.