Disclaimer: The characters and locations portrayed herein beling to JK Rowling, Warner Bros., Scholastic/Bloomsbury. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made.
The end of the world had come creeping in insidiously from the shadows . There was no huge explosion, no nuclear bomb detonated by insane muggles. There had been no weird virus that turned people into zombies, craving flesh from the living and infecting the victims in turn. There was no apocalypse. Just darkness and shadows and fading life.
It had begun with muggles disappearing. Whole families vanishing from their homes at night, with no evidence left behind to say why. No blood splattered across the walls, belongings left exactly where they had always been. Pan were left simmering on stoves, music playing repeatedly from stereos, showers left running.
The muggle authorities had at first merely put the disappearances down to unknown factors, not too worried about it until they realised that it was happening all over the globe, with alarming regularity. Within three months, whole towns were disappearing over night. Within six, the muggle population had been decimated, mere thousands left.
The wizarding world had taken note of the disappearances, but had not worried. What did they care if a few muggles disappeared? There were so many of them after all. No, they had not cared, until it happened in their community.
Suddenly, the wizards had found that they were not immune to whatever was happening to the muggles. Their magic did not protect them from the horror that slithered in when the night fell. They were merely able to see what was taking them. Strange, misty malformed beasts poring out of the dark corners and shadowed crevices. Men with eyes like dinner plates and hands like claws. Dogs with too many legs, too wide jaws and teeth dripping with foul smelling saliva. That they made no sound as they came merely added to their horror. The would grin and laugh, they would speak, but no sound would reach the ears of the victims.
Sometimes, there would be a survivor. A child, or an adult, there was no rhyme or reason as to why an individual was left behind. They almost always ended up in St. Mungo's; sometimes merely sitting and staring at the wall, sometimes gibbering nonsensical words. The one thing they all had in common was that, when night fell, they would scream. They would scream and beg and cry. They would scratch and tear at the skin, their eyes and pull at their hair.
Teddy Lupin knew why they screamed. He had been left behind when the Shadow Horde, as they were being called, had come for his Grandmother. He had watched as a man with one eye hanging against his cheek, pointed teeth shining with a sinister half light in a rictus grin had sunk his claws into his Grandmother. He had felt the warm, rancid breath of a wolf with many eyes and rotting flesh as it breathed in his scent; waiting for it to bite into him and drag him into the dark pantry that had been left open.
But the creature had just turned and padded silently back into the creeping dark, leaving him shaking and crying and sitting in a puddle of urine. He had gone to Hogwarts immediately, following several other wizards and witches who believed that Hogwarts was still safe.
Teddy was one of the few left, even the survivors of previous attacks had been taken when St. Mungo's was emptied. The Weasleys were all gone, they were taken when Godric's Hollow was attacked on Christmas eve, the entire village gone, no survivors other than James Potter, who was no longer the carefree boy that had loved life with a passion that others envied.
Now, James only came alive when Teddy was fucking him, whispering filth in his ear and biting until blood flowed from broken skin under his teeth. He only smiled when Teddy was sucking his cock; a grim, brittle smile that matched the rough hands that gripped multi-coloured, ever changing hair.
Now, night was drawing in, and James turned dead eyes to Teddy and said "They're coming. It's tonight. We're the last ones, and they're hungry."
Teddy looked out of the window, over the darkened grounds of Hogwarts. He saw them walking towards the castle, gliding with an unholy grace that was just wrong when set against their appearance. They were horrifying, and yet Teddy was not afraid.
James took hold of his hand and pulled him towards the Entrance Hall. As the great door of Hogwarts opened, and darkness crept in, Teddy smiled at the grotesque, butchered form of his Grandmother and smiled. James' whisper of "Dad."accompanied the dimming of the final light, and Teddy squeezed his hand and stepped forward into the unending darkness.