Wearing a fiery red bow on her head, the Fiendfyre Giant Toad looked down imperiously at the five little things on the ground. She gave a cold croak, but still snorted out a terrifying blast of hot air. After utterly destroying a large patch of trees already reduced to charcoal, she sucked that swelling breath back into her enormous belly-and the whole toad visibly grew another size.
"Croak!" The toad flicked out her fiery tongue mockingly, her eyes fixed on Brian and the others, seemingly deciding which of them would make the best appetizer.
This toad-I feel as though I've seen her somewhere before- Brian felt uncomfortable with the thought in his mind. He had actually seen something this bizarre more than once? Beyond that, he felt an inexplicable sense of destiny-as though his purpose in coming to this forest had been to see this toad, and-to make her disappear.
That sense of destiny was rather absurd, which made Brian reluctant to trust his intuition. Just think-if the four wizards beside him had not rescued him, he would probably already have become some sort of earthbound spirit, trapped in this forest forever.
Besides, Godric Gryffindor had been clamoring earlier for a one-on-one duel with the Fiendfyre. Brian resisted the urge to use the Fiendfyre-Breaking Spell on the giant toad. Salazar Slytherin had taught him that spell after Brian asked him about it on the way.
There were two versions. One used precise technique-a long, convoluted, complex incantation-to take the Fiendfyre apart like someone dismantling a crab with tools. The other simply used hard teeth-sufficiently substantial magic-to crush the Fiendfyre outright.
With time so short, Brian had only learned the two different incantations so far and had not had a chance to test them. Gryffindor had even joked confidently at the