THE WHEEL OF EYES [Harry Potter]

Harry could sense something was wrong.

Hermione knew it was a mistake.

They shouldn't have come here.

Ron was missing. Snape was lurking. There was the beast in the alley, clawing at the side of Gringotts.

Harry felt a chill run down his spine. The sky was blackening by the minute. The wind picked up. Thunder boomed. Lightning crashed. Blood curdled within his veins.

This was definitely a mistake. Hagrid was right to warn them. Hagrid was always right. If only they had listened.

Harry glanced at Hermione, then at the ominous storm forming above. He noticed something flying in their direction. As it came closer, he realised what it was. A great owl. It swooped in softly and landed directly on the ground in front of him. But it wasn't an ordinary great owl. It looked, unusually, menacingly, like a raven, save for its piercing golden eyes. Harry stared at it, its jet black feathers rippling in the strong wind.

He could not believe his eyes. This creature at his feet bore no resemblance to any owl he had ever seen before. It was black as oil. Black as night. Black as black.

"Sirius?" Harry inquired.

The owl flapped its wings, turned its head and then hauntingly froze its unflinching gaze upon Harry. He shivered. It was some sort of omen. Some sort of pure, unadulterated darkness. His bones suddenly grew cold. Death, Harry thought. It was like staring death in the face.

Where was Ron when he needed him?

Harry adjusted his glasses. The owl wasn't just looking at him, it was looking into him. He could feel it. He was vulnerable. Exposed. Frightened. He couldn't hide his fear from this wicked, devious enigma. It was piercing the layers of his wizard flesh. It was seeping into the depths of his buried collywobbles. Each second that passed the owl plunged further into his soul.

Harry reached for his own neck. The owl was choking him. Wrapping its stealthy evil around him like Voldemort's dastardly snake, Nagini. Slithering its grip, tightening its hold, strengthening its resolve.

"Harry!" Hermione shouted.

Harry struggled to breath. He stepped back into the alley when a second owl swooped in from above. It landed on Hermione's shoulder. She instantly froze. Harry could see the panic on her face. The sheer terror creeping into her body.

Harry reached for the wand in his pocket.

Just then Ron appeared.

"Harry don't!" he yelled.

Harry let go of his wand. He trusted Ron.

Now what Weasley? Give in and stop breathing? What was the plan? If only he could speak, but Harry's body was paralysed. He could only stare at Hermione, she herself frozen in a sinister grip, helplessly immobilised. The owl diabolically perched on her shoulder. At that moment he saw Ron reach into his pack and pull out a cloak. A cloak? Yes, Harry thought, brilliant. The invisibility cloak.

But it was too late. As Ron lifted it out what seemed like a hundred devilishly, shrewd black owls descended into Diagon Alley. They snatched the cloak away from Ron's grip and flew off with it into the lightning-filled sky.

There was a large crash of thunder. Ron's face was distraught. Defeated. Sad. He was now rendered helpless. He looked at Harry, frantic. Their hopes of escape had been dashed. Harry was starting to black out. Grey, dark clouds swirled in chaotic forms above them. Harry wished he could do something. He wished he could break free. But he was trapped. They were doomed.

At that instant though, as if he had willed it, the grip on his neck loosened. He coughed and fought to regain his breath. Simultaneously, the black owl on Hermione's shoulder departed and fled into the clouds. Then the owl on the ground in front of him, that had mercilessly invaded his heart and pierced his soul, turned its head in a slow, twisted, calculated movement and burst into a pile of black feathers.

Harry looked at Hermione. She was moving again. Touching her arms and legs. Returning to her own body after the strong, possessive spell.

Ron sighed. He smiled at Harry. They were safe. What a relief. The menacing, maniacal black-hearted owls were gone.

"Ron!!!!" Hermione screamed!

Ron spun around.

His face went white as a ghost.

Just inches away stood a tall, lanky, black-skinned multi-eyed beast that was previously clawing at the exterior walls of Gringotts, as if it needed to get into the building, as if it needed desperately to find what it was searching for. But now Ron was the object of its maddening attention.

It slowly sucked in air through its large, thin, sharpened teeth.

Ron cringed at the sound.

The vile creature's multiple eyes spun in two directions like a sadistic wheel. Clockwise. Counterclockwise. The darks orbs within each eye pulsed like large-stomached black spiders, breathing in and out.

"Black spiders. With a million tiny legs," Ron whimpered.

Ron stared into one of the wide circular eyes, absolutely terrified. He could feel himself being pulled into a hypnotic state. The intense rotation of the eye's core unnerved him. Not to mention the spider leg effect of its surrounding iris. All those legs inside the eye, he thought, they're coming for me.

"Hermione, help," he pleaded.

"I dropped my wand in Gring-!" But before she could finish her sentence Harry shouted from behind them.

"Sectumsempra!"

They turned to see Harry wielding his wand against the beastly arachnid-eyed creature. It yelped and howled at every cutting blow, angrily punching large clawed fists into nearby shop walls. Bricks exploded in all directions. Rubble amassed in piles around its feet.

Ron ducked and ran to Harry. Hermione joined them.

Ron took out his wand, "Sectumsempra!"

The two of them brought the beast assiduously to its knees. It collapsed in a heap on the ground.

They looked at one another, relief emerging on each of their faces.

"What was that thing?" Harry asked.

"A Circadian Vitupero," Hermione replied, "One of the worst Beasts of the Baltics. Known for its hypnotic abilities."

"I'll say," Ron said.

"From Newt Scamander's book?" Harry inquired.

"Precisely. Without all my time studying his Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, I'd be clueless," Hermione said.

"Right," Harry said, glancing around at the ramshackle remains of Diagon Alley, "We should go."