Quintaped

The Quintaped, also known as the Hairy MacBoon, is a dangerous magical beast with five legs, each ending in a clubfoot, and is covered with thick, red-brown hair.^[1]

Nature

Distribution

Quintapeds are only found of the Isle of Drear, which lies off the norhernmost tip of Scotland. The isle has been made Unplottable to minimise the danger posed by these creatures.^[1]

Interaction with humans

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

Uses

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

History

According to legend, Isle of Drear was populated by two wizard families, the MacBoon clan and the McClivert clan, who were apparently rivals. The family heads, Dugald McClivert and Quintius MacBoon, got drunk and engaged in a 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 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

• 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