AN: This here is a fanfic of a fanfic: Mud, Blood, & the Sound of Guns (by chase glasslace). You can find it easily in my favorites.
I
"Motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker" the Muggle wheezed. His hands were wrapped around his neighbor's throat, and were large enough and strong enough that his victim's neck would snap long before suffocation could do the job.
They were sprawled out on the Muggle's garden at sunset. The Muggle's son had left his bike outside again.
The Muggle's neighbor tried screaming and it didn't work. He tried to cast a spell with his snapped wand, but that didn't work either.
The neighbors saw nothing and heard nothing, because any night where no witch (or, in the case of the magical folk, no Navy SEALs) broke in was a good night. You go looking for trouble outside, you'd find it.
15,000 feet above them, war planes flew back to base because they were black on ammo.
II
Fun fact # 1: An Auror (aka a Death Eater) could take a Muggle soldier in a straight fight.
Fun fact #2: The Aurors (aka the Death Eaters) never got any straight fights. They were outnumbered by an order of millions.
Fun fact #3: A wizard against a crowd of civilians is like a starving wolf trapped in the sheep's pen.
Fun fact #3: The Muggles knew enough about magic to be dangerous anyway. Muggleborn children could supply the authorites with spellbooks and a practical knowledge of the Art in exchange for safety.
Fun fact #4: Few of the Muggleborn survived the concentration camps they were sent to afterwards.
III
On the I-10, as it passed through El Paso, Texas to New Mexico, a man with clear eyes could see a sign of the times.
A young man had been chained around the neck and the chain staked to the hard, dusty ground just off the freeway. Around him were several dozen rocks, ranging from the size of fists to the size of heads. Most were blood stained.
The man had been stripped naked, crusted with blood, and had pieces of bone sticking out at important places. His head was open, and the vultures had been at him.
A nearby ad board had been spraypainted over:
THOU SHALLT NOT SUFFER A WITCH TO LIVE
PAGAN BASTARDS YOUVE BEEN WARNED
THE WARRIORS OF THE CROSS
And below, a stick figure drawing of the Cross inside a shield.
This bold militia group would have been horrified to learn that the young man had merely been buying candles in case of a blackout, and hadn't planned any Satanic rituals at all.
Or, they'd have welcomed the publicity and infamy anyway. You never can tell with people.
IV
African wizards had it relatively easy. After all, most of the tribes around Zaire and the Congo basin already knew all about black magic, and were pretty relaxed about it as long as no curses or jinxes were used against them. However, many wizards living in the cities found out what the sharp side of a machete felt like.
Even then, armed militias were nothing the African wizards hadn't seen before.
V
Minerva McGonagall- SAS sniper at 870 meters, just outside of Hogsmeade.
Dedulas Diggle- airstrike in Kent. The Muggles didn't even find his home, but the illusions that hid him failed to protect him from the 2,000 lb JDAM dropped on his neighbor's house.
Arthur Weasley- murdered by Death Eaters for the crime of being a Muggle-lover.
Molly Weasley- murdered by Death Eaters for trying to save her husband.
Severus Snape- murdered by Harry Potter for turning in the Weasleys.
Rufus Scrimgeour- lost a hand to a grenade while assaulting a Muggle Airfield. He died of blood loss just seconds after the other Aurors (aka Death Eaters) finished blasting the base.
Peter Pettigrew- gas attack on Knockturn Alley. He tried to escape in rat form, but it turns out nerve gas worked on rats as well.
President Clinton- tortured to death by America warlocks allied with Voldemort. His successor, George W. Bush, took the lesson to heart and never slept in the same bed twice. He carried on the war from hiding, and appeared on television only to address the nation and to urge them not to break now when they were so close to victory.
VI
Graffitti on the streets of Belfast:
FUCK THE ORANGE AND
FUCK THE GREEN
MY DAD JUST GOT KILLED BY A
FUCKING WIZARD
ANYBODY GOT AN ARMALITE FOR ME?
And scrawled right under it in green paint:
YES
GO TO BRADY'S MECHANICS
3RD AND ASHTON
WELCOME ABOARD
A week later, a trio of wizards from New York fleeing the Harlem pogroms saw the second message. They burned Brady's Mechanics to the ground, killing six men and three women. But the rifles had already been distributed into willing hands.
VII
The effects of Polyjuice Potion on warfare cannot be overemphasized. It's demoralizing, to say the least, to go relieve a battle buddy from first watch and find he's holding a wand in his hand and spouting demonic gibberish like "Avada Kedavra" or "Imperio".
VIII
One possible turning point for the wall might be on the horizon.
Japanese scientists had isolated the gene for magic- an unprecedented breakthrough. Within a few years, they felt, police and military personnel could bloodtest wide swathes of the population and root out the wizards who remained undercover. There was a 3% false-positive rate that they couldn't eliminate, but the collateral damage would be worth it if they could establish magic free Blue Zones with complete confidence.
IX
"Tom, how did you not see this coming?" the old wizard asked. His voice cracked from grief and stress beyond what man was meant to endure. "In tradition there always wisdom. Why do you think we've lived in secrecy all these centuries?"
The tall wizard with no nose scratched his pet snake's head, and said nothing.
He didn't need to speak. His wide, malicious grin said it all.
X
North Korea, well... most North Koreans didn't know about the war. There weren't many wizards who lived above the 38th parallel, and those who did knew discretion like an old lover.
Kim Jong Il just watched the West and the East fall apart, and smiled.
XI
Napalm sticks to kids.
So does Fiendfyre.
As both Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and London found out within two months of each other.
XII
The world hasn't bled this much since Rome erased Carthage from the map, killing its men, raping its women, slaughtering its cattle and salting its fields.
The world hasn't bled this much since Ghengis Khan conquered half the known world in an orgy of fire and steel.
The world hasn't bled this much since Stalingrad churned the world into grey dust, bloody snow, and rotting corpses frozen into the mud.
XIII
Most people in the world go to bed wondering if they'll survive the night.
Some kids will grow up learning to judge distance by how loud the gunshots sound, and where the best sources of cover in their neighborhood were. They'll be more familiar with these facts than with Dr. Seuss.
XIV
The world hasn't bled all that much. Not compared to what will happen next.