Quintaped

Nature

Distribution

Quintapeds were only found of the Isle of Drear, which lay off the northernmost tip of Scotland. The isle had been made Unplottable to minimise the danger posed by these creatures.^[1]

Interaction with humans

The quintaped was carnivorous, with a particular taste for humans and as such were extremely hostile towards them.^[1]

Abilities

Quintaped have a certain degree of spell resistance, as they resisted the various attempts to untransfigure them back into human form.

Uses

The five club footed legs of the Quintaped were used to represent the number five, in the runic alphabet.^[2]

History

According to legend, Isle of Drear was once home to two Scottish wizard families, the MacBoon clan and the McClivert clan, who were apparently rivals. One fateful night, the family heads, Dugald McClivert and Quintius MacBoon, engaged in a drunken wizard's duel, which resulted in Dugald's death. In retaliation, the McCliverts snuck up on the MacBoons while they slept, turning them all into monstrous five-legged beasts. However, the MacBoons were notoriously inept wizards, and the McCliverts realised too late that they had only made the MacBoons infinitely more deadly. Resisting desperate McClivert attempts to untransfigure them, the MacBoons killed all the resident McCliverts.^[1]

Whether the legend is true or not is unclear. There are no surviving McCliverts or MacBoons today that can relay the fate of their ancestors. For their part, the Quintapeds have resisted all attempts by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to Untransfigure them, and they are unable to communicate with the Quintaped. It can only be assumed that, if they are indeed transfigured MacBoons, then they are happy to live the rest of their lives as Quintapeds.^[1]It is also possible that, due to this not having been a proper Animagus transformation, the MacBoons lost their intelligence in the process. 

Etymology

The prefix quint- means "five", while -ped refers to legs. Hence, "quintaped" refers to something having five legs (maybe saying Fivelegs); this leads to a mystery about a relation to the similar creature 5 Legger. The Quint-part of the name could possibly be taken from the legend-told Quintius MacBoon whose first name starts with Quint and was transformed to a Quintaped.

Behind the scenes

• In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when Harry is hiding his Potions textbook in the Room of Requirement, he sees a cage containing the skeleton of a creature with five legs. This has been confirmed to be a Quintaped by J.K. Rowling on Twitter, although concept-art for the creature in the films showed it to be quite different from a Quintaped.
• In the 2018 illustrated edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quintapeds were mistakenly given a new classification of XX, though their description remained completely unchanged.

Appearances

The Harry Potter Wiki has 6 images related to Quintaped.

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Harry Potter Trading Card Game (First appearance)

Notes and references

Study of Ancient Runes
Professor: Bathsheda Babbling
Textbooks: Advanced Rune Translation · Ancient Runes Made Easy · Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms · Rune Dictionary · Spellman's Syllabary
Known Runes: Acromantula · Demiguise · Ehwaz · Eihwaz · Fwooper · Graphorn · Hydra · Quintaped · Runespoor · Salamander · Unicorn · Unknown · Mark of Merlin