10:15 pm on the 17th of October, 2011
The skies above St. Mungo's Hospital

A cold front came rolling in from the northwest bring with it damp skies and sharp autumn winds, threatening winder. Boulevard trees shook, street signs swayed, and windows rattled. It was calm on the streets outside of the magically concealed hospital. It was calm inside its walls. The lights were dimmed on each floor in consideration of the sleeping patients. Mediwix went about their nocturnal duties quietly. Some anxiously waiting family members had bedded down in waiting rooms. A half-dozen waited to be seen in urgent care.

---

Zelda Sellaphix, now known to be possessed by a vengeful Pentral, slept fitfully in restraints. Potion-induced sedation had been the Healers' best palliative option for the preceding 10 days as they searched for a way to expel the spirit without sacrificing the living witch's mind and soul. When the Healers restored her wakefulness, there had been very little of the witch at the surface - only an ice-gripped, wordless hissing and screaming shell, only a skilled Legilimens able to detect Zelda still intact within.

The Pentral seemed to grow stronger daily, and now, even under a potion-induced fog, it pulled at the straps.

---

Outside, the temperature dropped suddenly. Frost crisped onto windows. Light drained from street lamps. Five Dementors seemed to materialize from the dark clouds, and they slowly moved in on the hospital, their gaping maws ravenous.

---

This is an open-ended action thread. See the plotting thread for more detail.

At the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes
10:20pm

A lever was pulled and within moments the otherwise sleepy Level Three had erupted into activity. A great swarm of paper memos shot off, and three or four shimmering Partroni hurtled away. Dementors in London! Similar alarms and procedures had been activated on Levels Two and Four, definitely, and certainly there'd be something stirring on Level Nine.

Within five minutes - the time it took to Floo into the Atrium and get to the elevators - a dozen or more witches and wizards poured in, in different states of readiness and dress.  Among them, Quill Som who was shouting orders. A normally measured witch, she certainly knew how to make her voice clearly heard over a ruckus.

"Advance team is deployed! Dementors reported in the vicinity of St. Mungo's! Call everyone in, no exceptions, all wands! Move!"

Level Three knew what they were doing. Everyone knew their role in a disaster, they knew their perimeters, they knew their Apparition points. They knew to stay clear of the hot zone until Law Enforcement and Creatures were established.  And they knew how and when to engage St. Mungo's for Healing reinforcements ...

But the Dementors, from reports, were on the hospital's doorstep.

Quill snatched the elbow of a burly wizard speeding by. "You: muster Lyra and Scorpio teams - you're diverted directly inside St. Mungo's. Do not engage the Dementors. Get in there and get ready. This is going to be messy."

It was possible that the initial report from just minutes ago was imprecise, that the Dementors were not actually at the hospital. Information changed quickly. But why couldn't Quill stop thinking of Lawrence Musgrave?

St. Mungo's Hospital
Fourth Floor, Spell Damage Ward
10:16 PM

It had been a long day.  A long week, really, starting with the lead-up to the full moon the week before.  The possible daylight direwolf attack in September[1] meant that it had been a long seventy-two hours for the Capture Unit, who had had to stay on alert from one sunset before the lunar apex all the way to a full sunset afterwards.

Even though there had not even been a hint of a second daylight werewolf attack, the extended watch had left his team exhausted.  They'd all barely slept for three days.  The usual paperwork afterwards had then taken him through most of the weekend, meaning that it had been a over a week since he'd last made it in to visit Zelda Sellaphix.

The witch wasn't doing well.  It seemed as if all of the Pentral victims were being affected by the vengeful spirits to different degrees.  Zelda's symptoms had started out mild, but they had gotten worse and worse as the weeks had worn on.  The last time that he'd visited, the Healers had put her into a potion-induced sleep to try to buy themselves more time.   By all accounts, nothing seemed to have improved since then.  There wasn't very much that he could do, even if he made time to visit, but somehow it still felt wrong to leave her all alone in St. Mungo's.

It had already been late by the time he'd finally gotten off from the Ministry.  Upon arriving at the hospital, Kurby had headed up to the tea room on the fifth floor first to grab a styrofoam cup of stale coffee, and then returned to the fourth floor to Zelda's room.

There was a lamp burning by her bed, but even with a window looking out onto the street outside, the light in the room seemed dimmer than it ought to be.  It was cold in the room, too.  Kurby sighed, pressing his fingernails into the styrofoam as he stepped inside.  It was hard sometimes not to feel like there wasn't any point in being here.  Like Zelda wasn't going to get better; like he'd waited too long to force the herbologist to seek help, and like she was suffering because of it...

You could have done something sooner, a dark voice in his head said.

Zelda was laying on the bed, her eyes shut.  But even now in her seemingly unawake state, her body had tensed, pulling against the straps.  If it weren't for the restraints that had been applied to keep her from hurting herself, the woman looked as if she would be thrashing wildly about.

Seeing her like that made him feel sick to his stomach.  Kurby sighed, gritting his teeth as he looked away.  He hated feeling helpless like this.  Hated feeling tired.  Hated feeling like there was nothing he could do for a friend who'd come to him and asked him for his help...

The room seemed to be getting colder every second.  As Zelda thrashed against her restraints, it was almost as if he could see frost creeping up the glass window on the other side of the bed, forming icy patterns against the light of the dim quarter-moon outside.

Frost...

Kurby paused, staring at it.  It took a full two seconds before he realized.

Frowning, he took one last look at Zelda, and then tore himself away, heading back to the hallway.  The cup of coffee was still gripped tightly in his left hand.  He switched it over to his right, and then drew his wand.  If there was something really wrong here, if it wasn't just some side effect of the Pentral possession, he wasn't going to retreat too far from Zelda's room.

"Hello?" he called loudly, peering down the hall.

1.	12 Sept 2011 - Bad Moon Rising

To say that this had been a bad month for Lexus was an understatement. She was only a few days out from the latest Full Moon and while she was to be fully recovered she was simply not herself. As fate would have it, this Full Moon landed on the one year anniversary of her Husbands death - his murder. Wolfsbane allowed her to keep her wits about her while she was in wolf form but left her with very little to do but dwell on the fact that her affliction was the very reason he had been killed in the first place.

Since returning to work she had opted to take the night shifts, sleeping was near impossible anyway. She had been in her lab brewing potions as the temperature began to drop. She took little notice of it at first. She was letting her current brews simmer, which would give her plenty of time to fetch a hot cocoa and work the chill out of her bones.

Lexus wandered the Hospital, letting herself go on auto pilot as her thoughts churned in turmoil. This wasn't really anything new, unfortunately. Anytime she wasn't fully concentrating on her work, her thoughts went dark. She wrapped her arms around herself as the chill seeped through her healer robes.

A single horrible thought crossed her mind, he'd still be alive if he never met you that seemed to snap her out of it and she looked around herself. She was no where near where she thought she was and moments later a man stepped out into the dim hallway, wand raised.

Lexus swallowed past her dry throat. Her hair stood on end, all her Lycan instincts were sending off fight or flight alarms, "something's wrong."

The halls were too empty, too dark, and too cold, even for this late at night.  Now that he was aware of it, he could recognize the sickening sensation that was growing in his stomach.[1]  Knowing what might be the cause of it didn't necessarily help, but at least it brought clarity to help create action.

A witch wearing the lime green robes of St. Mungo's stood in the hallway, looking distraught. 

"Something's wrong."

That at least gave him something to hold on to that wasn't a growing sense of dread.  Kurby snorted, trying to ignore the chill that was creeping down his spine, or the thoughts that came with it, of flats and direwolves and what happened next. 

"No."  He arched an incredulous eyebrow at the Healer.  "Really?" 

He tried to force back his own sense of dread as he stepped back into Zelda's room, attempting to fight off the sensation that he was going to be sick.  It was colder here than it had been even in the hallway.  Frost was creeping up the window, obscuring the night outside with an icy spiderweb of crystals.  Tied down to her bed, his friend was still thrashing, her unconscious movements growing more and more frantic, as if somehow she knew what might be coming for them.

Kurby stepped past her bed to stand in front of the window.  In the darkness of the street outside, barely visible through the frosted window, he could almost make out a dark, wraith-like shape drifting through the air, a tattered cloak sprawling behind it.

"Dementors."  The word stuck like ice in his throat.  Kurby swallowed hard and glanced back at the Healer, all thought of mocking her gone.  "I can't imagine they're here for a check-up."

1.	April 22, 2010 - Like Wolves at the Door

Perimeter around St. Mungo's
10:27pm

Nicholas had never been more glad of all the training he'd suffered through.  It was his first day...well evening...he didn't get to have a day shift for his first shift out of training.  And apparently he didn't get to have a quiet shift for his first either.  And of course it was dementors.  And he still couldn't form more than a white-grey mist patronus.  Which was terrifying, even if he wasn't supposed to engage with the damned things directly.

All he was supposed to do was protect the area from muggles. Which was fine by him. He had his muggle clothes and the bright yellow vest to look somewhat official and he was to turn away any muggles who got through the muggle repelling charms he'd hastily cast.  And if any got past them, and weren't attacked by dementors, he was to obliviate and send on.

Easier said than done when even at his post he could feel that weight of despair in his chest.  He reached into his pocket and felt nothing there.  "Shit," he muttered to himself.  He hadn't grabbed the chocolate that he was specifically told to bring when dementors were involved.

The sarcastic reply Lexus received from the Wizard caused her to bristle and her lips curled into a snarl. She caught herself just in time to keep from actually growling at him. She looked over his rough features and felt a sense of Deja vu - as if she had known him in another life. [1] Before she could retort he had run back into the room he had come from.

Without thinking on it, Lexus followed. She was instantly drawn to the thrashing patient and a soft gasp escaped her lips. She pulled Zelda's chart and looked it over - what in the world was a Pentral? She had no idea what was actually afflicting the woman but it was noted that she had already been given a sedation potion, which unfortunately meant there was very little Lexus could do for her.

Kurby' s words brought her back to him and she felt the cold in the room penetrate her being further. Of course it was Dementors. Lexus instantly drew her wand and pointed it towards the ceiling. A gorgeous glowing silver Eagle burst forward and circled the room bringing the temperature up ever so slightly. She then tapped her wand tip to a badge she had clipped to her robes. She had been given it when she joined IDREAD, it allowed her to signal the other first responders in such a situation.

"Can you make a Patronus?" Her own Eagle would offer them protection for the time being but she'd rather be safe than sorry. Two Patroni were better than one.

---

[1] If I Should Fall From Grace with God

A silvery eagle burst forth from the Healer's wand, and instantly, the icy cold seemed to retract a little. 

The werewolf hunter paused.  Tearing his gaze away from the window, he gave the witch a sidelong, searching look, silently assessing his new companion-at-arms.  Not every witch or wizard could cast a Patronus.  It was challenging, ancient magic, well beyond what was even taught at Hogwarts.  If he'd had to put down a wager, he wouldn't have expected there to be many within the walls of St. Mungo's who could.  But this lime-robed Healer had done so using wordless magic, with Dementors circling outside.

Wordlessly, he set his styrofoam cup of coffee down on the table alongside Zelda's bed, and thought of his sister. 

"Expecto patronum."

Silver light burst out of his wand, quickly swirling to take the form of a large silver spider, about the size of a small dog.  The glimmering arachnid scurried through the air toward the window.  Once it reached the icy glass, it rose up on its back legs, press its front appendages against the glass, its mandibles soundlessly clacking as it seemed to peer out.

The presence of two Patroni made the sense of overwhelming, despairing pressure retract even further.  Kurby let out a breath that he hadn't realizing he was holding as he shifted to face the window again, jaw set. 

"You got a plan in place for somethin' like this?"  he asked the Healer, his gaze focused intently on the window.  In the silvery light of the Patroni, it was easier to think, too.  This late at night, the hospital would be filled with a skeleton crew of staff, but there still must be countless wixes here: the night shift, bed-ridden patients, lingering visitors.  Was there even a central gathering location?  How the hell were they supposed to relocate patients like Zelda, who were immobilized?

He had returned home from the Ministry at first, for genuinely needed rest and a sensible costume change - but Yavin Morgenthau's Monday was far from over. Once responsibilities on level nine were seen to, his mind drifted quite naturally to Musgrave and the unhappy wixes of St.Mungo's Hospital. An additional responsibility and one that he tried to squeeze in whenever possible. Today he had additional incentive as their work in the morning had been interrupted due to an angry incident between Misslethorpe and Lawrence. It had left the latter quite upset.

The elevator rose smoothly, carrying the lithe wizard to the fourth floor.

It had been years since he lost his wife in one of these very rooms. Weariness wore down his shoulders. He closed his eyes. Yavin did not think of her every time he came here but some evenings the memories were inevitable: usually the happy ones, through which ran the golden strain of their incandescently vibrant friendship. Tonight was different. Tonight he could only think of those moments, those despairing moments when he had nearly lost Indira over the course of their countless adventures. In Pakistan, when she'd almost been drowned by the fanatics - or that time the robbers had very nearly taken her from him, in South Carolina.

The look in her eyes. He could never forget the look in her eyes, the one that wished him farewell just in case their luck ran out at that very instant. Until, that is, it finally did in this hospital.

Yavin drew his wand and opened his eyes, the lift doors sliding to reveal the fourth floor. He recognised this despair.

His long-legged tread was quiet but unhesitant as he made his way down the corridors, calm on the surface. It was only the alert glimmer of his beady dark eyes that gave away any tension. The Dementor on level nine did not make him unnecessarily confident: it was only a single one, a starved creature. These would be incredibly dangerous.

He needed to go to Lawrence, as soon as possible. Voices carried down the passageway from one of the wards - the door was ajar and the faint blue light of patroni emanated from it. "You....plan....somethin'....this?" Yavin paused at the archway, looking in with instinctive concern.

One of the possessed victims was having a fit of some kind. A reaction to the dementors? His gaze snapped to the Healer, and then the scruffy man with the arachnid patronus. Two was more than enough for now; he would reserve his wand should they need other spells to be cast.

"How long has she been like that?" he asked, as if though they weren't on the brink of a disaster.

Kurby's reply came in the form of casting the spell himself. Lexus gasped as the giant spider burst forth. She wasn't afraid of them herself but she was still surprised nonetheless. It wasn't everyday you saw one the size of a dog. It made her wonder what kind of man would have a Patronus like that. However she didn't have as much time as she would have liked to study such a man.

She pointed to the badge she had previously activated, a soft glow emanating from it now - though barely visible in the light from the Patroni, "I've alerted IDREAD. Help should be coming." Despite her proficiency with a spell such as Expecto Patronum, Lexus was still just one witch. A witch without direction at that. She wasn't entirely sure what she was even supposed to be doing next.

The pair was swiftly joined by another man asking about the thrashing woman. Lexus felt a little put on the spot. Her eagle came to perch nearby (for moral support), "Unfortunately I'm not her Healer." She could recite what was on the chart but that wasn't going to give the man what he wanted. Instead she turned to Kurby expectantly. He had been in the room long before her and was much better suited to providing answers.

The Dementors outside had already set him on edge.  At the sound of the unexpected voice, Kurby jerked back, his wand still in his left hand.  He positioned himself so that he was standing between Zelda's bed and the newcomer, still facing the window at an angle, balancing on the balls of his feet as if ready to move.

He didn't recognize the tall, lanky older wizard, but the sight of the rainbow jumper with the snarling cat made him want to claw his own eyeballs out.  Kurby grimaced, standing down only slightly.  That goddamned thing was so bright that it could probably act as a Patronus in its own right.

"She's been possessed since August," he said tensely, still eyeing the blindingly-bright newcomer.  Finally deciding that the man likely didn't mean harm, he shifted to face fully towards the window again.  "She's been jerkin' around like this since I got here a bit ago.  I haven't seen her do that before."

You haven't been here to know, a voice in his head remarked.  Kurby pushed the thought firmly down.  He wasn't going to get distracted.

"So what the hell do we do until the help gets here, then?" he asked the Healer tersely.  There were helpless people here.  He had no intention of abandoning Zelda Sellaphix, but he also didn't like the idea of leaving the rest of St. Mungo's inhabitants to their own fate.  Even if there was no full moon tonight, even if the night was dark and full of swooping terrors instead of howling ones, his job was still to keep people safe.  "We need to get whoever we can out of rooms with windows and into a central place.  Those goddamned things can pick off whoever the hell they bleedin' want if we're spread out through the hospital."

There was a deepening sense of despair starting to affect Miranda as she pulled herself from the mind of a patient on Level 4. They were in a cubicle, the curtains drawn for privacy. She’d had to pull out as, what had been starting to work and improve the mood, was starting to backfire and the young witch was falling into a deeper depression, the room growing colder. In an attempt to prevent herself from being dragged down too, Miranda had pulled back, entering back into her usual consciousness with a lingering despair. This evening, however, there was no improvement in her senses as she pulled back. Instead, there was a sense of impending doom which started to fill the Head Healer with intense dread.

Something was very wrong.

“Head Healer.” A mediwitch, looking quite terrified at the fact that she had to disturb her boss, poked her head through the gap in the curtain. “They’re surrounding the building.”

“Dementors.” Miranda muttered under her breath.
“They’ve notified the authorities. They’re on their way.” The usual hot chocolate relief was offered to the young witch and Miranda took her own flask of the same liquid as she left the cubicle. There was only one person that she could think could be responsible but she couldn’t just barge in to see.

Into the corridor, Miranda started to head towards the private rooms and Lawrence’s cell. However, at the door to Zelda’s room, stood Morgenthau talking to someone inside the room.

"We need to get whoever we can out of rooms with windows and into a central place.  Those goddamned things can pick off whoever the hell they bleedin' want if we're spread out through the hospital."

The voice was heard from within the room as Miranda approached and after a quick acknowledgement to Yavin, she looked to the wizard who’d made the suggestion. He’d been there when Zelda had first been admitted almost 2 months before.
“A sensible suggestion…” But her gaze swept to Zelda in the bed and lips parted in surprise. A hand snatched out to grab the clipboard containing details to see the latest sedation potion had only been given a couple of hours before. This was a new and worrying development.

“Yavin, you need to find if your patient is responsible for this and check his wellbeing.” This could set them back months rather than weeks. As a porter walked past, she called them in. “Run down to my assistant to mobilise staff. We need all healers and staff to move patients to a safer area and any available hands in the building to start casting patronuses. Snardsworthy can also have the kitchen mass brew hot chocolate to hand out to anyone in the building. Have some urgency about you.”

With the departing of the wizard, Miranda moved past her healer and the werewolf hunter towards the bed. “Did either of you see when she changed?”

"Keep your eyes fixed on the sky,
 Watch them: high the cinders fly.
 Each bright fleck a sin a-kindled.
 You a sorry wretch, you witch of Pendle."

Difficult to detect by magic of any good will was the conflicted nature of the struggle of the Pentral. She had begun her existence in pain, flourished in rage, survived with wrath, and now was driven only by existential fear. The body she had stolen was now her prison and the dark reapers were coming to harvest.

"Can you hear that scratching sound?
 Two score squibs below the ground.
 Their bones will make our barley tall,
 Until nothing's left of them at all."

Out, out, out!

Like a hand on a hot cauldron, he had tried to jump away. But unlike the reflex of an arm, two minds in his had taken longer than reflex to retract safely, and he had flailed, both in mind and body.

Out!      I’ll bring them - I’ll bring them here!

He had seized a grip on Misslethorpe’s throat before Stump’s stunning curse from the door laid him out cold on the floor. The hitwizard was trained not to ask questions, vigilant for these moments. Even if the healers had protested the actions, he wouldn’t have waited. Too great a risk.

Angry, disorientated, ashamed and self-frustrated, Lawrence had ordered them out. Like an emotional teenager, there had been ugly yelling, though only on his part. He hadn't wanted to talk about it. He had wanted them out of his head, out of the room. They had trodden on a raw nerve, and to hell if it was accidental, or part of progress.

Strong emotions drew them, had brought them to Andy Carter’s[1], to Misslethorpe’s house[2]. He’d had woken that morning to find the dementors in his head were in the next room, closer than they had been for weeks. As he had buried his red face in his drawn up legs, and covered his head with his arms to hide, they were right outside the door. He had pictured them as if they were stood with Misslethorpe, Morgenthau and Stump.



















The voices were right by him now. Lawrence lifted his head, wriggling his chin free of the warm Watling Warriors scarf. He had brought the blankets from the bed and wrapped himself in them as evening drew in, covering his head. It reminded him of when he had survived the winter outside on the run. Of how he had never seemed to get warm. The temperature in the room dropped as he sat in his selfish wallowing. Of late he’d not always been sure when to trust his mind or when it was playing tricks on him, and said nothing to Stump, still smarting from the curse.

An old biscuit tin lay open on the floor at the foot of the armchair. Black and white photographs from childhood were bundled inside with an encouraging letter from his father beneath. Morgenthau and Misslethorpe had brought them and the scarf to him in their efforts to reunite Lawrence with happier emotions and memories. He had reached for them in an effort to break out of the blackness since the day’s incident.

He watched his breath condense.

“Not here.” He uttered. “Not here.” He found his voice again, shaking his head. It had been so long they were unlikely to listen to him. Not if they had found pentrals again, whatever they were. He had not experienced their frenzy quite such apart from that day in August. How could there be pentrals in a hospital? Had they come here at his emotions, expecting their favourite treats? All he had were the ghosts of memories they were trying to re-establish, and if they took those, then they might as well his soul for all the use he was. He was a liability, a risk to everyone who the dementors would feast on along the way.

“No, no, no, no, no…” He repeated in a low moan, until the small part of him which had reached for the door of the telephone box back in April, took charge of his voice and began to cry out to the three wizards, and the one witch who might heed his distress.

1.	26th March, 2011 Thy Book of Toil is Read
2.	18th March, 2011 O Let Me, Pensive, Watch They Pale Decay

Perimeter around St. Mungo's
10:46pm

Quill Som was among the last to leave Level Three, all hands dispatched to the field. Muggle Worthy Excuse had woken up the Department of Magical Transportation's Weather Office's Tempestarii, who were magically manipulating the naturally growing stormy weather to be more intense around the perimeter. It would keep more muggles off the street, and provide a useful explanation for her people on the street.

"Downed power lines!" she shouted at a trainee, who she couldn't tell was Nicholas Bevans.  The wind was picking up and she had to raise her voice to be heard.

"The story is 'downed power lines'!"  She'd expect that the Obliviators would remember the scripts related to that Excuse. She noticed then he was young, and put a brief reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"Keep calm. Downed power lines. Got it? Spread the word. I have to go in."

Quill was dressed in muggle street clothes: acid wash jeans, and a pale pink raincoat. She held the hood tighter to her head as she approached the hospital. As soon as she passed the threshold set by the Tempestarii, a great deal of the storm abated, but the despairing chill and bone-chill winds created by the Dementors persisted. Street lights were flickering - another helpful aspect of the Excuse.

Eyes to the sky, she couldn't make out the shape of any dementors in the clouds, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Around her, red-robed Aurors and agents of Level Four were set to work. But Quill's task was to make sure St. Mungo's was working. Procedure meant that the proper wix inside would know of the catastrophe and be engaged, but in a catastrophe like this, it was better to double-check.

She went through the main doors and sure enough, emergency mediwix were preparing the lobby to withstand a spell fight. 

"Are the patients being secured? Keep them away from the windows, but keep a back exit clear," she repeated the procedure.