A/N: Some of you may have noticed that chapter updates have not been appearing for stories updated over the past week. Fortunately, that issue did not (I think) impact this story as the last update was posted a day or two before the issue began, and it appears to be cleared up now. If you had any trouble reading updates from your favourite stories, go and take another look. I think the issue has been cleared up. For future reference, this story is also being posted on AO3, in case something similar happens again.

Chapter 9

Geomann was ushered into Harry's office, looking flustered and confused. After the morning he'd had, Harry could sympathise.

"Have I done something wrong, Mr. Potter?" he asked as he took his place in a conjured seat.

"Nothing wrong," said Harry truthfully. "We just need your expertise on something, if you don't mind?"

"Was all of this really necessary?" Geomann asked, perpetually watery eyes flicking to the auror who was retreating out the door again. "My door is always open."

"I'm afraid so." Harry sat on the edge of his desk while Diana hovered nearby.

Padma was elsewhere coordinating the search-effort for Daphne, and Diana didn't have all that much else she could do for the search, so Harry figured he'd have her sit in while he was questioning Geomann. At least her gift for languages might prove helpful.

"We need to know about the Pair Dadeni," said Harry as he made himself comfortable.

Geomann frowned behind his thick-rimmed spectacles. "The Cauldron of Rebirth? You are still investigating Daphne?"

Something in how he said her name gave Harry the distinct impression that poor Pavel might be holding a torch for the woman, but it wasn't important. That was very much his problem, not Harry's. "We're trying to track down her abductor," said Harry. It was technically the truth, after-all. "We have reason to believe that they are going to attempt to locate the cauldron, and we need to know anything you might have which could narrow the search area."

"Well, as you probably know, the muggle legend states that it was destroyed," said Geomann as he pushed his glasses up unnecessarily. "There's one version of the legend, recorded by an Irish wizard, that said that it was instead stolen by a young wizard from the Orchedes." He clearly noticed Harry's impending question and clarified: "The Orkney Islands."

So far so good, it certainly matched what Astoria had remembered. "That's quite a lot of islands to search," Harry pointed out.

"Well, yes," said Geomann. "And this is perhaps why the Cauldron has never been found. The young wizard was named 'Bridei Buan', but what he went on to do with it is lost to time, I'm afraid."

With a flick of his hand, Harry summoned the map that was usually stuck to the wall of his office, and it flew over to rest gently on the desk. He looked over the islands. "Well, let's see if we can narrow it down at least a bit," he said.

"What else do we know?" he asked. He circled the main island first. "Surely we can skip this one. If something was hidden there, it would have been found by now, right?"

"Rousay is a possibility," said Geomann, pointing his finger to the island in question. "There's a long history of wizarding settlement there, at least."

"What about this one?" said Diana as she pointed at another of the islands. It was not especially large, but it was obvious why it had drawn her eye. It was separated away from the others in a little square of its own. That meant it was unplottable. He recognised the name immediately. The Isle of Drear, the home of the fearsome quintaped.

A terrible suspicion floated up from the dark depths of his mind. "Is there any connection between the wizard's name and the MacBoons?"

"Some have posited the possibility," said Geomann. "But it is hard to substantiate, given the tendency the current MacBoons have towards killing any and all creatures who set foot on their island."

"'MacBoon' does seem as if it could be a patronymic name rooted in the name of Bridei Buan," said Diana thoughtfully. "His name, I think, means something like 'Bridei the Enduring'. Or perhaps 'Bridei the Swift' if the epithet was originally Pictish. Either way, the MacBoon name, if they are related, would be 'son of the enduring one'. It is not so far-fetched."

"If the cauldron is indeed hidden on Drear, then it would certainly explain why efforts to find it have been unsuccessful," said Geomann, looking a little put out.

Harry was silent for a while as he considered his options. The Isle of Drear was certainly one of the most dangerous places in the world. In the early nineteenth century the Ministry had tried to remove the quintapeds from the island after all attempts to reverse the transfiguration had failed, and had assembled a task force of more than a hundred witches and wizards. Less than three hours after they'd departed to the island by portkey, three had returned by the same method. They were the only survivors, and the next week the Isle of Drear had been declared 'Terra Incognita'. No further ground expeditions to the island had ever been approved.

There had been one or two fly-overs since then, but even those were not without danger. The MacBoons could jump to ridiculous heights, and seemed to be able to see fliers even when concealed beneath every charm they could manage.

If he took the question to his boss, the answer would almost certainly be to wait and see. The chances that a witch of Daphne's strength could survive for long enough to even begin searching for the Cauldron were minimal.

The only problem with that logic was the minor issue of Superman.

"How much do you know about quintapeds?" Harry asked Geomann eventually.

"The legend of their creation, of course," he said quickly. "There are many who think that the legend has become rather garbled, and that it might have been the MacBoons themselves who first created quintapeds, and that their creations consumed them first, before doing the same to the McCliverts."

That was potentially useful information. At the very least, if they were not transfigured humans then perhaps their intelligence might not be such a big concern. "What about their strengths and weaknesses? I know they are highly resistant to most magic."

"According to the survivors of the 1823 expedition, they are effectively immune to all direct magic," said Geomann. "They saw some limited success using conjuration, but all injuries only seemed to enrage the quintapeds, and they healed extremely quickly. They were also reported to have some ability to sense apparation and other methods of magical travel from a great distance."

That matched what Harry remembered. If conjuration was able to damage the creatures, then surely Superman would be able to do some significant damage. What worried him most was Superman's speed. There was a very real chance that Superman could search the entire island in less than the blink of an eye. No matter how dangerous the quintapeds might be, Superman's speed could render them completely irrelevant.

He looked over to Diana. "What do you think, sound like something you want to try tangling with?"

"I have fought the very beasts of Tartarus," she said. She certainly didn't lack confidence. "It would be best if I knew more, however, before we do this."

Harry gave her a very quick description of what he knew of quintapeds. Bigger than the heaviest gorilla, covered in thick ginger fur, with five limbs, each ending in a club-foot. They didn't really have a proper head, and instead they had a huge tooth-lined mouth on top of their body. They were also perpetually in a state of violent rage, and there were stories of quintapeds killing themselves in their attempts to rip unlucky wizards limb from limb.

"As long as they do not have any magical method with which they can attack, I think they will be within my capability," she said firmly.

Silently, Harry agreed with her. Her speed and strength would hopefully be enough to manage them. If nothing else, her ability to fly would surely allow her to escape if she was in danger of being overwhelmed.

He really hoped that wouldn't happen, as if it did, he'd be right up shit creek. "In that case," he said as he stood up. "I don't suppose you'd care to join me in a little trip to the Isle of Drear? We'll leave just as soon as I can get a team together."

Diana nodded, and was about to speak when Geomann beat her to the punch. "Are you mad?" he cried, looking between them in abject horror. "Did you not hear me when I said a task force of more than one hundred was wiped out by those creatures?"

"I heard you," said Harry evenly. He was actually quite impressed with how he managed to keep his voice from wavering even slightly. He'd done more than his fair share of mad things, but it looked like his next would hold a special place in history. It might well also get him fired. "Can you see yourself out? As you might imagine, there's quite a lot I need to get organised before we leave."

"Like your wills, I hope," Geomann muttered. For a moment it looked like he was going to try and object again, but in the end he said something that sounded like 'your funeral' and loped quickly from the room.

It took a few minutes for Harry to round-up all the on-duty aurors who were not out on some assignment or other. There weren't many. Even during Voldemort's first rise to power, when they'd been most numerous, their number had never exceeded twenty or so individuals. Bones, Quigley, Williamson and McDonald were all present, even if Bones and Quigley were meant to be off-shift. Besides them there was only Padma who wasn't, strictly speaking, an auror even if she had completed the training and apprenticeship, and Williamson's auror apprentice, Mirabelle Smith. Once they were all standing together in the middle of the auror department Harry conjured a little pedestal and stepped up on top of it so that he could be seen by everyone he was addressing.

"You all need to understand that what I'm about to ask of you is not an order," he said first. It was a very important distinction to make. "What I'm about to explain is going to be very, very dangerous, and for that reason I will only be taking volunteers, and there is no shame at all in opting not to join in.

"We believe that our best lead on where Daphne is going to be headed next is the Isle of Drear."

Given that the assembled witches and wizards were aurors, they put it together pretty quickly. Mostly, they looked shocked that Harry would so much as consider such a thing, but Harry noticed that Bones was at least trying to take the announcement in her stride, even if tension in her posture betrayed her. Smith looked positively excited.

"The Isle of Drear is off-limits," said Williamson, his arms firmly crossed. Harry had expected nothing less from the man.

"Fortunately for me, I have the authority to relax that ban," said Harry evenly.

The power to do so rested solely with the Wizengamot, the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and the Head of the Auror Office. Even after the disaster of 1823 they had recognised the possibility that a dark witch or wizard might try and use the Isle to hide from the law, and a clause had been added which Harry intended to use to its fullest. In theory he still needed to consult with the Minister, but it didn't say he had to do that before going there. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, after-all.

"I will be going to the Isle of Drear, alongside Wonder Woman" —She waved at them from her spot next to Harry— "and whichever of you decide to join me. I warn you, however, that I cannot guarantee even my own safety, and it's entirely possible we may all end up dead."

"I'll join!" said Smith immediately, waving her hand in the air enthusiastically.

"No you bloody-well won't," said Williamson, though it was really more of a growl. "You're my apprentice, and you're not going anywhere without my say-so."

"But sir, this is what you've been training me for," said Smith. Harry found himself admiring her spunk, even if privately he did agree with Williamson.

"If you think this kind of hair-brained bollocks is what I've been training you for then the lessons clearly haven't been getting through that thick skull of yours."

"Smith," said Harry, drawing attention back to him. "You need to understand that this isn't an adventure. The only way stories get told about this is if it goes very wrong indeed. You've got a bright future ahead of you, and you've got a family that loves you. Don't go all in on this for the wrong reason. Think it through. Weigh the options like you've been taught."

"Well, I guess I'm in," said Bones while Smith was digesting Harry's words.

Quigley immediately followed his partner. Padma was going to volunteer too, until Harry caught her eye and shook his head minutely. If everything really did go to shit he needed her around to pick up the pieces.

Next to speak was McDonald, who looked very apologetic as he said: "Sorry, pal. You know I've got the wedding coming up."

"No need for that," said Harry evenly. "This isn't the job. I want you to keep up with the investigation while we're gone. If we're wrong, then I want some alternatives to pursue. Got it?"

McDonald looked relieved and nodded eagerly. "Aye, will do."

"Sir," said Smith finally, drawing his attention back to her. She'd been quiet while the others were making their decisions, but she finally looked like she'd come to her own conclusion. "I've thought about everything you've said, and I still think I want to help."

Harry regarded her for a long moment. She looked barely old enough to be out of Hogwarts, really. Short, willowy with long blonde hair, she could probably pass for sixteen with the right clothes, but he also knew her to be very talented with a wand, as all aurors had to be. In the end, he'd given her the choice, he couldn't take it away just because he thought she'd come to the wrong conclusion. That wasn't how choices worked.

"Okay," he said nodding firmly. "But you stay right next to me, right? I take point, and no unnecessary heroics."

"Yessir!" She saluted, and grinned broadly. "Thank you, sir. I won't let you down."

"At ease, soldier," was Harry's dry reply.

o-o

The Isle of Drear was true to its name. They arrived in a fine mist of sea-spray and rain. The portkey deposited them on a small headland, though even that was giving it more credit than it was probably due. Really, it was a narrow spit of rock and sand that the North Sea was busily attempting to drag beneath the waves.

The most important thing about it was that it was well away from the places where the quintapeds were known to gather. It really wouldn't have boded well if the portkey dropped them all a few feet from a quintaped. Harry had no doubt that they were going to have to deal with them eventually, but the longer they could avoid it the better. Taking it slow over land gave them the best chances of being able to avoid a confrontation.

As soon as they arrived, they cast the old leather belt that had been their portkey aside. Each of them had their own portkeys for the return journey for maximum safety. The island wasn't protected by anti-apparation charms, but the distance back to London wasn't small, and if the shit hit the fan in a big way, the portkeys would be much more reliable than simple apparation.

Harry tapped himself on the top of the head with his wand. The familiar sensation of having an egg cracked over him followed, and he soon faded almost completely from view. It took a couple of minutes to get everyone concealed and silenced. The spells were simple enough, but every person had to cast their own charms on everyone else in order to be able to see and hear them through the disillusionment charms.

There were a couple of slight issues that had to be dealt with. The first was the glowing lasso that Diana carried with her, which stubbornly refused any and all efforts at magical concealment. In the end it was instead carefully concealed beneath the skirt-like flaps of her costume. It was far from perfect, but as long as she didn't take to the skies, he hoped it would be enough. The next problem had been how to keep Diana in contact with the rest of the group, as she was unable to cast the same spells everyone else could. No-one had ever thought it would be useful to allow one specific muggle the ability to see and hear a concealed wizard.

In the end, they gave up trying to find a solution, as Wonder Woman's heightened senses allowed her to perceive the tell-tale shimmer in the air of the Disillusionment Charm. So long as she didn't get lost, they could deal with some communications difficulties.

They then left their relatively safe little haven and set out towards the island proper.

It was not an especially large island, even compared to the rest of the Orkney Islands it was on the smaller side. There were only two known settlements on the island, which had been identified by wizards flying a safe distance away. One was ruined, and had come to be called McClivert, after the clan that had once supposedly occupied the island alongside the MacBoons. That was the closest of the two. On the other side of the island which, like the other Orkney islands, was mostly flat and treeless, with little in the way of cover, was the little collection of earthen huts that had been marked 'MacBoon' on the maps.

That was their destination, but first they had to get there.

"Keep close," said Harry to his small group. Their best hope was to get across the island without being noticed.

They walked over the narrow sand-bar that joined the little rock they'd arrived on and the main island. Behind them, their footprints whirled away into nothing in tiny little vortexes of sand. Because of their tendency to kill or eat everything that stepped foot on their island, the intelligence of quintapeds was unknown. Better to be safe than sorry.

When even Newt Scamander had given up on trying to understand them on his second attempt with the telling remark that they 'seemed happy enough where they are. Best not to disturb them', most right-thinking people had opted to leave them be.

As they climbed up from the beach, onto a grassy ridge that gave them a better view of the disconcertingly empty landscape of Drear, Harry couldn't help but wonder if that meant he wasn't 'right-thinking'. Probably.

Even from the top of their ridge, there was not much to see. A heavy fog lay over the whole island, and the air was so full of water droplets that they would already be soaked to the skin if not for impervious charms. Despite that, Harry had memorised the map of the island, and he was confident of where they needed to go.

Before they started descending, however, there was a thundering sound from down on the beach. From around the nearby headland, they caught their first sight of a MacBoon emerging from the fog.

It was probably a smaller specimen. Not as tall as a man, but it moved with incredible speed. Its five legs thumped over the beach in a blur, leaving a trail of thrown-up sand in its wake. It stopped suddenly at the base of the ridge, and turned this way and that. Droplets of water flew from its orange-brown fur as it spun from side to side. The huge mouth that often dominated all pictures of quintapeds was open atop its muscular central body, and Harry could easily see the rows of teeth that lined it.

There could be no doubt that it was a magical creature. There wasn't much space on its body that wasn't mouth but just above it, nearly covered in fur, were two beady little eyes that were usually dark. Every now and then, though, they'd flash a dim shade of red. After a moment, Harry realised that the reason it was shuffling left and right was to allow it to look at the little tidal island on the other end of the sandbank with both eyes, without its foreleg getting in the way.

After a few seconds of inspecting the island, it took off again in an explosion of thrown-up sand and water. In less than a second it had reached the island, and from his vantage point, Harry watched it as it caromed around, looking for something that Harry hoped it would not find. Not long later, it reappeared atop the highest rock of the island, with an old leather belt clutched in its front limb. It let loose a loud multi-tonal cry that seemed to make the entire island vibrate until Harry realised it might actually just be his eyeballs that were vibrating. It was a singularly bizarre sensation.

Then, while Harry was still reeling, it stopped and threw the belt into the air. A moment later it disappeared into the many-toothed maw. Then the quintaped disappeared down behind the rock once more.

Harry tapped Diana on the shoulder, drawing her gaze back to his shrouded form, and said to the rest of the group, "I think we'd best get moving." Something about their arrival had tipped the creature off, and he didn't want to give it the chance to track them down. Some magizoologists had raised the possibility that quintapeds were actually arcanovores, which was why they'd elected to avoid magical methods of travel across the island. That was how they'd explained the fact that the wizards who'd mapped the island from far above, under the protection of many concealment charms, had seen their every movement followed by dozens of the creatures.

He just hoped that whatever method the creatures used to sniff out magic wasn't acute enough to pick out the effects of the concealment charms.

They moved as quickly as they could, which over the relatively flat, if occasionally boggy, terrain of the island was a respectable pace. As they moved, Harry stayed at the front of the group, and he made sure Susan stayed at the back. Her job was to keep an eye out for any MacBoons circling around behind them.

Soon, the McClivert village came into sight, and as Harry had expected it barely even warranted the term 'ruined'. If the stories were to be believed, the last time it had been populated had been hundreds of years ago, and the climate of Drear was not kind to anything left outside for that amount of time.

The only reason there was anything recognisable as a village was the type of building it had once hosted. They were built into the ground, with large stones set into the walls, and the roofs barely above ground-level. Or, so Harry assumed. After so long, there was not even the smallest sign of the roofs remaining. Either rotted or blown away by the frequent gale-force winds that scoured the island, ensuring that nothing taller than grass could grow there.

Harry reached out to stop Diana from heading down to the village. "We should give it a wide berth," he said to the rest of his team. "There's too many potential hiding spots down there."

It only took a little prompting to get Diana to follow them as they skirted around the jumble of ruined buildings. It took far longer than heading through the middle might have done, but Harry's cautious approach was soon proved correct when another MacBoon, perhaps a little larger than the one on the beach emerged from one of the ruins. It climbed up over the rocky lip, and looked around, though once again Harry had no idea what it was looking for.

Fortunately, it seemed to have no idea that they were there. It ambled from one of the ruined buildings to another with no sign of the same frenetic energy that the one on the beach had shown. It turned around a few times, trampling heavily upon the ground of the new ruin, before settling itself into the depression in the dirt, seemingly uncaring of the misty rain that had covered its matted orange fur in little droplets.

Under the cover of their charms, they continued around the ruined village, making sure to stay a healthy distance from all of the buildings. There was nothing to say that the quintaped they'd seen was the only one nearby.

The walk to the MacBoon village was much longer, and it was nearly two hours later that they caught sight of it. The walk had been uneventful, with only the occasional sighting of a flash of orange fur as they bounded past them on their way to wherever it was they were going. Occasionally the strange call could be heard echoing across the island. Sometimes it would be a lone quintaped, and other times there might have been a dozen or more. It was hard to tell.

What worried Harry was that although the sightings of quintapeds had become less frequent as they walked, the number of calls had increased. More importantly, they sounded as if they were getting nearer. He sincerely hoped that it was simply because they were getting closer to the village where, by all accounts, the quintapeds gathered most densely. He didn't like the idea that they might be being driven by the creatures.

They crested a small rise, and Smith called out: "Quintaped ahead! On the right."

They all stopped, and Harry looked in the direction she was pointing. On the other side of the low hill, a quintaped was indeed scraping at something in the dirt. Harry held out his hand to stop Diana from continuing, as he knew she wouldn't have heard Smith's warning.

"Back up slow," said Harry. He wasn't about to take any chances.

Slowly, carefully, they all backtracked a short distance away from the preoccupied quintaped. When they reached the bottom of the hill, Harry felt Diana tap his shoulder, and she pointed up towards where they'd been standing not moments before.

The quintaped had moved, and was pacing back and forth atop the hill. Unlike the others they'd seen, its mouth faced downwards. A large purple tongue lolled out onto the ground, and a rumbling sound escaped from the creature. It turned left and right, searching for something only it could identify. Then it started descending the hill slowly towards them.

As it did so, Harry realised what was happening. It was following their path almost exactly, and its tongue flicked back and forth as it moved, testing, probing the ground. Every point the tongue touched was one of their concealed footprints. The magic that concealed all visible trace of their passing was surely faint enough that even a veteran Spell Sniffer would have had trouble following them, but the quintaped was picking up speed as it descended towards them.

"Cancel the undetectable passage charms!" said Harry. With a flick of his wand, his own was removed. The others quickly followed. "Bones, Quigley, you go around the hill on the right. The rest of us will go left. If there's still a trail to follow, hopefully it'll get confused."

He tapped Diana on the shoulder again, and prodded her in the correct direction. He was sure she was very confused by what was happening, with their inability to communicate with her, but she seemed to understand well enough, and together they moved quickly away from their magical trail.

Just in time too. Something about the four of them cancelling their spells at the same time tipped the quintaped off. It paused and stared right at where they'd been then, no more than a few seconds after they'd moved away, it thundered down what remained of the hill in a storm of furry limbs. It came to an abrupt halt exactly where they'd been standing when they'd separated.

Once again, it twisted back and forth, its five legs beating heavily against the ground as it looked one way, then the other. Then it stopped, and those dark eyes flashed red. In a bizarre motion, it tossed itself into the air, where it twisted, and its joints seemed to reverse. When it landed, it was upside down, or upside up, Harry wasn't sure. The important thing was that the tooth-filled mouth was on the top.

"Move faster," said Harry as he shoved Smith to the front. There was no way he was going to let the rookie of the group act as rear-guard.

It didn't matter, even before they'd made it two more steps, the quintaped surged forward with such a burst of speed that it was only thanks to Harry's training that he was able to react in time. His wand flashed, and a shield of pure molten gold grew up from the ground. In moments it had encompassed all three of them, and Harry saw Diana out of the corner of his eye, looking around.

The quintaped collided with the shield with all the force of the Hogwarts Express under full steam. It held, but there was more than just sheer force behind the quintaped's attack.

It pressed itself up against the shield, it's rear legs digging into the earth with the force of it, while the front leg pressed harder and harder against the supposedly impenetrable wall. Slowly, the shield began to give way.

It was almost like the hair on the quintaped was burning the magic away. Where it touched the shield it glowed like fire, and the once golden shield faded into a dirty brown. The area the quintaped was pressed against was like a huge weal on the surface of the shield.

With his free hand, Harry cancelled his own concealment charms. He then re-cast the shield, only slightly smaller.

"Smith, stay hidden, but don't go far," he said through gritted teeth. He'd never had to fight to keep a shield up before. "Diana, I think I'm gonna need a hand here."

He saw her nod beneath the concealment charms that he had not removed. Perhaps they'd lend a little extra surprise factor in the fight.

Even in the time it took to speak, the quintaped had almost burned through the new shield. It had climbed right on top of the shield, and Harry could see the prehensile purple tongue pressing through the shield at its weakest point.

Then, quite suddenly, it jumped off. It took a moment for Harry to realise what had happened, but the sound of spellfire outside the shield jolted him into action.

"Shit, they're trying to fight it!"

He dropped the shield immediately, and was greeted by the sight of the quitaped bearing down upon Susan and Quigley, who'd taken the high-ground at the top of the rise. As he watched, Quigley summoned a wall of fire which he sent down the hill at the quintaped which didn't even bother to avoid it. Instead, it barrelled straight through it like it was little more than an illusion. Susan followed the attack up with hundreds of stony hands which reached up to grab the creature's feet, and was rewarded when it very nearly lost its footing.

Sadly, an animal with five feet is very difficult to trip up, and it was barely even slowed. Moments before it reached the two aurors at the top of the hill, they apparated down to where Harry, Smith and Diana were standing.

"Nothing sodding touches it!" Susan shouted before the crack of her hasty apparation had even faded away.

There was no time to answer. Instead, Harry conjured a long spear, and with another twitch of his wand, it went flying at the quintaped at almost supersonic speeds. As they'd seen before, the quintaped jumped into the air with a prehensile grace, and as it twisted in the air, the tongue snaked out and grabbed the spear as it flew by. It paused just long enough to consume the spear whole, then it was charging down the hill at them again.

The others saw what Harry was trying to do, and each conjured or transfigured their own missiles to send at the creature, but its speed and unpredictability left every one of them either missing, or consumed.

Then Diana darted forward, sword in hand, and shield unslung from her back. She collided with the creature with enough force that her shield rang like a gong. Her sword flashed at the nearest flailing arm, and the creature wailed out a ghastly sound as it reeled back. She'd bought herself only the barest of moments before it was on her again. This time it decided to take advantage of the fact that it had the greater number of available limbs. Two of its forelimbs ripped the shield from her grasp in a show of strength that was terrifying to behold, while another held her sword at bay.

That didn't look good. "Pull her back!" he shouted to his awe-struck companions. He didn't care who did it, so long as one of them did. At the same time, he cast a switching spell on the earth beneath the quintaped's feet, excavating a hole nearly ten feet deep, and filling the air above it with soil and stones. Diana would surely have fallen in if she hadn't been yanked backwards by at least two different summoning spells.

The quintaped made a strange whistling noise when it dropped into the hole with a thump that Harry could feel through his feet. Then things got worse for it as the soil and rocks that had previously been under its feet fell down on top of it, filling the hole up once more.

Diana pushed herself up from the ground where she'd fallen, and Harry was glad to see she didn't look any the worse for wear. "That creature was much stronger than I was expecting," she admitted as she shook her head. "I should not have underestimated it."

She walked up to the patch of displaced earth, and picked up her sword and shield, which Harry had managed to avoid dropping into the pit with the creature. As she picked up her sword, the earth shifted slightly, before settling again.

Then it exploded outwards, and they were all peppered with bits of earth and stone. The quintaped emerged, mouth agape, and tongue lolling to the side as its eyes flashed and spun wildly.

Diana did not hesitate, and drove her sword straight through its abdomen, before tearing it back out again to one side. A trail of thick purple blood sailed through the air, and splattered over the thoroughly trampled grass. The quintaped thrashed madly as it refused to acknowledge its own death, and loosed another multi-tonal sound, like a giant set of bag-pipes being stamped on by an angry elephant.

Finally, the sound trailed off, and silence descended again. Then, in the distance, from all over the island, it was echoed a dozen, a hundred times or more.

"We need to get moving," said Harry, and everyone agreed. Those calls did not sound friendly.

A/N: I've always felt Quintapeds have been criminally overlooked in fanfiction.