Silent Paws

Dementors

A massive wave of snarling hooded figures crashed down on them. Cita remained frozen, her eyes fixed on the incoming dementors.
Her instincts were telling her that they had mere seconds before they were going to die- but she couldn't move.

A white dome suddenly enveloped them. Screeches filled the air as the dementors flinched back.

"They- don't like- light!" Mioha grunted, her hands extended above her head. "I can't hold it- for long!"

Cita felt panic rise inside her. The dementors were swirling around the white dome, claw-like hands reaching out for them, their hoods fluttering like black shadows.

They were trapped. Even if they did flash, where would they go? What if the black hole didn't lead to the outside?

She would never go home. She would be stuck here, in a wrong time, in a wrong body. Forever.

"Cita? Cita! CITA!" Mioha's voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

The woman swallowed. "What do we do?" she yelled over the noise.

"Maybe- if we combine our powers, we might be able to scare them back into the tunnel!" Mioha said with a strained voice. "And then once we open the doors- we can flash out of the ministry!"

Cita nodded and stepped towards the girl. She took a deep breath to calm her heartbeat. Despite never having met these creatures before, she could feel they were creatures she did not want to come into contact with.

She didn't know exactly what to do and let her instincts guide her. With another deep breath, Cita wrapped her arms around Mioha, resting her cheek on the girl's head.

She could feel Mioha trembling, both from fear and exhaustion.

"Don't worry," Cita mumbled, trying to hide her fear and to sound reassuring. "I won't let them hurt you."

Something began to warm inside her chest. Cita couldn't tell what it was, maybe her magic? Whatever it was, it was spreading through her body, traveling past her fingers to Mioha.

Mioha took a shaky breath and slowly lowered her arms to return Cita's hug.

The white dome remained standing. It didn't crack, instead it grew brighter.

"We're both Lux," Cita whispered quietly. "Even if we don't have control of our full powers yet, together we can beat a bunch of demented ghosts."

She felt Mioha laugh shakily. "Dementors," the girl corrected her softly.

They tightened their arms around each other.

Cita's magic wove itself through Mioha's, creating a fine-meshed net that rippled out around them like water. It moved outward towards the boundaries of the dome, and then past it.

Neither of the two had their eyes open, but the screeches suddenly seemed to fade and disappear upward. After another few seconds, they opened their eyes.

Light filled the entire room, touching the inside of the wide tunnel. It stretched upward, and then turned around a corner. Mold and slime coated the walls.

The dementors had gone. The black tunnel seemed empty, but Cita knew those foul creatures were lurking in the shadows above. Somewhere.

Mioha swallowed and grabbed Cita's hand.

"I will open the doors," she said, "and then we flash back to Hogwarts."

Cita nodded and faced the direction from which banging and shouting was still reaching her ears.

"On three. One-"

Mioha and Cita stood side by side, holding hands.

"Two-"