6 Dementors

On the sidewalk, Zach shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He was waiting for confirmation that the delegation had made it inside the Ministry of Magic. They were using a secret entrance on the side of the Henry Bartle Frere Statue. Zach could never remember what it was that made the man famous, but he rather thought it was because he made a mess of the things he was involved in.

Suddenly from over the Thames there was a dissonant sound. Zach turned, looking towards the Jubilee Gardens. His throat dried up when he was a faint shimmering veil over the London Eye. He quickly pulled out the phone and pressed a few buttons.

He had barely pressed the [Send] button when a tall wizard appeared next to him.

"What is it, Zach?" It was his uncles' best friend, Lee Jordan.

Wordlessly, the younger man pointed where the air and sounds were increasingly chaotic. Lee looked calm, although his eyes sharpened.

"You're not safe out here. Get to the gate and make sure everyone is inside. Seal it and keep it sealed!"

Zach nodded before sprinting under the trees towards the center of Whitehall Gardens. But before he could reach the statue, he ran into a dark shadow that seemed to grab his legs and slow him down. He looked and saw a figure shrouded in torn ribbons of black fabric. It was a dementor!

As a squib, Zach had no magical defense against such creatures, which is why he to relinquish his position to Lee. But now that the creature was upon him, he had no choice but to fight back.

Forcing himself to keep moving, despite the effort it was taking, he reached into his tactical belt and pulled out an object the size of an egg. It was one of his brilliant cousin's experiments. He squeezed it until he felt it crack, then flung it up into the air as hard as he could.

With a soundless explosion of pink and silver rose-shaped sparkles, a dome two meters high appeared around Zach, extending almost to the statue. Zach could see there were still figures outside the gate.

Zach regained his legs as the dementor's sound died away within the dome. He began racing down the sparkling corridor towards the garden's center. Unfortunately, the roof started to slowly collapse, like a deflating balloon. Rose's inventions were powerful, but short-lived.

His head broke out from the shrinking canopy several meters from the statue. Zach's eyes watered with the sudden pressure change into the swift winds and noises about the gardens.

At the base of the memorial, a female figure was pressed against the white marble, her robes grayish in the drab light. Tendrils of straw-spun hair twisted wildly in the wind. He could see both Fred and the security guard Patronuses struggling to keep two dementors at bay. Fred's little barn owl was only slowing the advance of the evil creature, not powerful enough to push it back.

The security guard, on the other hand, had a rather large silvery snake, it's face swaying back and forth to prevent the dementors from getting closer. But Zach could see the sweat on the man's brow, and knew the efforts he was giving.

The pull on his body was worse than before. As quickly as he could, he positioned himself to the side of the statue. When he depressed a small sword design, the bronze placard pulled back and slid away. He grabbed the girl's hand and pulled her into the hole. As her head moved past, he yelled above the noise into her ear, "Take the steps all the way down!" She turned to look at him, her startled eyes wide.

Zach froze for a moment; he had never seen eyes of cerulean blue.