At first, it had only been a whisper, a half-believed rumour that everyone knew but no one cared all too much for. The rumours had spoken of cracks in the earth that allowed you to see far below the surface. There had also been rumours of waves of fire that were a sick parody of the sea as they destroyed everything.
Hermione had known what it was, of course. A volcano hadn't been too much of a surprise, neither had an earthquake been. The news on the television when she had been younger had more than prepared her for something like that.
The rumours had obviously lost the most important point: the size of these cracks, and the fact that both occurrences were in fact one instead of the two she had been led to believe.
The idea of everything that had been happening that Hermione had been told was a far cry from the utter devastation that Hermione could see coming to her at that very moment.
The spreading crack was oozing more and more lava from within it.
It was exactly like the way several seers had described the end of the world when asked. Hermione had never believed all their mystical nonsense.
Just like she had never believed in Trelawney's prophecies, and that had turned out simply wonderfully.
"Hermione, isn't there anything we can do to stop this?" Ron asked, panic clear in his blue eyes.
Despite knowing it's futility, Hermione wracked her brain for any idea that could possibly do just that but the witches and wizards had grown too comfortable with their magic. Nothing had been invented in years, not publicly at least.
No one had ever thought that something that affected the muggle world would have exactly the same effect on the wizarding one. The very thought had been preposterous, especially to the purebloods. The muggleborns still had very little say in the matter.
Hermione watched helplessly as the magma crept closer.
She wished that there had been some book that had instructions on what to do in this kind of situations. Hermione definitely would have read that one, even if it were simply for the sake of her own interest. There was no such book though. There had not even been half a parchment on natural disasters. Having magic made people arrogant and made them think that they can do anything without a thought.
There was nowhere left to go now though. It wasn't simply a problem to be solved. There was no solution here.
The sea was boiling to the point where even the cooling charms that were cast on the bottoms of the ships faded within moments. Their food was scarce since very few had thought to ration out the remaining food in the early days. They hadn't had contact with anyone beyond their immediate surroundings in an extremely long time, making it difficult to tell if it were safe to apparate elsewhere for fears of being burned alive anyway.
Hermione took a moment to marvel at the sight of purebloods and muggleborns mingling without thinking about each other's status. The house elves were also flitting around people. Hermione mourned the situation that had caused this as it was impossible that it would last for long.
"I'm sorry, Ron. There was never anything created to stop this, and there's no time to do anything about it now."
Written for Game of Life Challenge: Lawsuit: write a fic without using any words that end in 'p'
Written for Ancient Runes Assignment 5: Nauthiz – Write about Hermione Granger
Written for Rubik's Cube Challenge – End of the World!AU