Picking up the thread, A Dare Options

[the finicky lady]

…down the stairs. Down and down it went, bouncing gleefully on each step. It hadn’t had so much fun since the Marauders, scourge of the peace in the castle, had animated it! So much fun to trip up students and annoy teachers, such a wonderful joke!
The String of Doom was so absorbed in its malignant musings it barely notice the slight tug on the thread farther along. Startled, it bumped against a wall and came to a stop, just as someone began tugging in earnest at the thread from farther down the hall. Slowly, the ball began to unravel again as the person pulled, and pulled, and pulled.
Frantic not to be unwound, the ball curled itself up tight and waited out the ride. Shortly it found itself in the hands of a curious first year, who held it up to the light from a window for an examination of this unusual artifact.
“What a disgusting ball of thread!” one of her friends squealed. “Wherever did it come from do you think?”
The first year was just on the verge of answering when a disturbance down the hall caught her attention. Ms. Norris was scrambling down the hall towards them, yowling like a demon. The mere presence of the cat burdened both the girls with a guilty conscience, though neither had done anything to warrant it, and they turned and fled. In her panic to avoid the angry cat, the girl tossed the ball out the window. Far above the ground and trailing its tail from the hall, the Ball went sailing…

[moonyprof1]

straight into the branches of the Whomping Willow.

Whomp! Whomp! The hideously large arboreal plant tried to rid itself of the Thread Ball of Doom, but in vain. The ball merely unraveled further and wound itself in, around, and through its homidical branches. Thread against Willow struggled, locked in a battle to the death.

It was perhaps unfortunate that Luna Lovegood should choose this moment to wander by.

Luna, her vision a bit obscured by the Spectra-Scopes she was wearing, and distracted by the new edition of the Quibbler that her father had sent her ("Ancient Astronaut from Mars bears Severus Snape's Love Baby!"), walked directly into the path of a flying skein. She barely had time to think, "Hmm, that's interesting," before she found herself pulled into the maelstrom of flying branches and fibers.

Neville Longbottom, who had remained largely unaware of the bizarre turn of events at the school, and who was taking Trevor for a little constitutional in Greenhouse Five, watched in horror.

"Ak! Um! No! Bad idea!" Option one: watch the girl you quite possibly have a crush on and who is in any case a good friend get turned into willow whumpage. Option two: Try to do something about it that would no doubt be futile and become willow whumpage.

It was at times like this that Neville deeply, deeply regretted having been Sorted into Gryffindor.

What did he have? A Remembrall? No, he'd lost that ages ago. Trevor? Trevor had never done a helpful thing in the entire time he'd owned him. Wand? What spell would he use, anyway? Shears? No, those were in the greenhouses, unless. . .

Neville scrabbled frantically in his right pocket and came out with a handful of Mooncalf dung fertilizer. Ok, not optimal conditions, but the only thing he could think of. He hurled it deep into the foliage, aiming for the willow's root ball.

And just as he had hardly dared to hope, the massive plant began to droop and sag. "Over-feeding," Neville thought smugly. "Works every time." The branches wilted and the thread disentangled itself from the tree. Luna began placidly picking the thread out of her hair.

"Oh, hi," she said vaguely. "Did you see . . " she added, waving in the general direction of the Whomping Willow.

Neville hid his stained hands behind his back. "Err, sorry? No, er, I--must have missed that."

"Oh, well," said Luna, dropping the end of the thread onto the ground, "if you'd rather not admit to saving my life with a well-timed ball of poop, then no doubt you know what you're doing." She wandered off again in the direction from which she had come.

Neville stared after her, jaw dropping, then turned and gave the Thread Ball of Doom a vicious kick in the direction of the lake, and it rolled rapidly . . .