[COMMAND, MEDICAL, MILITARY] I can now definitively say we have a creature called a dementor haunting our grounds. I don't know yet if there's only one, but I did stop an attack on Nathan Wuornos by at least one late evening, yesterday. He'll be fine, it didn't feed much, and he was taken to medical.
As far as I can guess, magic users from my world will be the only ones qualified to combat them directly, but I can give some tell tale signs of their approach and advice for caring for those who have been attacked:
They do not walk or make much sound, so their approach is difficult to detect. They levitate and appear to be nothing more than floating black cloaks with gray, skeletal hands. If you're seeing that much detail, however, you're probably already too late to react. Best ways to be aware of ftheir approach are by paying attention to how you feel. Things get cold when they're near, and I don't mean the weather, but more like bone-chilling fear. You may also notice your mood drop to an all time low, rapidly and inexplicably.
They feed off good memories, happiness and with enough time, the human soul, and they can feed on multiple people at once. The feeling is near paralyzing, especially to those unfamiliar with it, which means once they have you in their grasp, there's really no escaping without the interruption of feeding occurring. As far as I've seen, they never really seem satisfied, and are drawn to areas with a large opportunity of food source (i.e crowds), like any creature. More fear and more food will breed more dementors. They do not hold allegiances and their sentience is questionable -- in our world, they were used to guard a maximum security prison to prevent escapes and punish criminals. Admittedly, I think it was also a way to keep them occupied.
It might sound ridiculous, but chocolate is one of the best treatments against these creatures. Chocolate, warmth and time. The longer they feed, the weaker you are and the longer recovery takes. We have a few witches in medical that can help, if there are more attacks.
Solutions I have to offer at the moment are sparse, thus why I'm reaching out to you. I'm contacting everyone from my world and we'll be starting training on strengthening charms against dementors straight away, but other than stationing magic users out a little more frequently and stockpiling as much chocolate as we can, I'm not certain where to start with containment or long term preparation.
Command, I can put together a small team and try to at least suss out how many we might be dealing with currently, with your approval.
[NATHAN WUORNOS]
How are you doing?
[VANCE & POTTER]
Pending approval, we're going dementor tracking.
[HP CHARS]
Stay vigilant and start practicing patronus charms with each other as often as possible. Per Tonk's post, Potter was volunteered for teaching, and that Vance, McGonagall, Lupin and myself are all available for instruction as well. We're lucky there are so many of us here, but that won't mean anything if we're not prepared.