19 October 2011

LONDON - The most peculiar thing happened at St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries on the night of the 17^th of October, just two nights ago. It all began when four Dementors were spotted in the skies of London headed towards the hospital. The Ministry of Magic’s Interdepartmental Dementor response team IDREAD was activated and within minutes Aurors, Obliviators, and agents from The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures were on the scene with the task of driving away the dangerous beasts and preventing casualties.

The Dementors made a beeline to the hospital and began, with all urgency, to assail the building completely ignoring every wix outside.

“This was highly unusual,” said Quill Som, the head of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. “Until that night, the only recorded motivation of Dementors was to attack human beings.”

Outside, IDREAD agents made every effort to drive the Dementors away, but their Patroni were only temporary deterrents.

“They just kept coming,” said Auror Zora Roh. “Nothing we did drove them off.”

At some point, two Dementors were able to enter the building.

“We found an open window on the fourth floor. Maybe someone used it to escape and left it open? No idea. It could have been catastrophic,” elaborated Roh.

An initial theory of the strange behavior had to do with disgraced Auror and current resident of St. Mungo’s Lawrence Musgrave. Details are sketchy, but sources within the Ministry tell us that his legal situation is murky and that his presence in the hospital is supervised in some way by the Department of Mysteries and concerns his peculiar relationship to Dementors.

“How in Merlin’s shiny drawers can you possibly think we’d comment on that,” comment courtesy of an Unspeakable.

However, Musgrave was reportedly relatively unharassed. Instead, the pair of Dementors were wholly focused on the majority of patients being evacuated to the safety of the hospital’s basement.

“It was horrifying,” said Healer Kai Moskowitz. “You could feel them coming and so many of our patients were totally unable to defend themselves. It made your soul just … sink. The frost crept under the doors. I’ll never forget it.”

And then, mysteriously, the Dementors fled the building. Reports from the different departments comprising IDREAD have given little solid evidence about what might have caused it, and St. Mungo’s reported only minor injuries.

“We have some theories. Maybe they got what wanted. Whatever that is,  I reckon the Department of Mysteries isn’t telling us something, but what else is new,” said Roh.

Quill Som elaborated on any outstanding threat to the public. “We’ll work as hard as we can to get to the bottom of this. We caution the public to maintain precautions and to continue to report any Dementor sightings with all haste. More answers forthcoming.”

“You’re kidding right?” said that same Unspeakable. “No comment.”