The beginning of it all! Warnings for character deaths.

It had started as a passing idea that Luna suggested absently one day, during what Harry would later call her 'Seeing Days'. On those days her visions would come clearly to her, but whenever she tried to speak them to anyone they came out as a jumbled mess, much like Trelawney had been in her earlier years. During those days Harry took to carrying a voice recorder with him, charmed to self-record every time Luna spoke. It was during one of those days that she mentioned that humanity would one day come to need the life it had, but that the life on the earth wouldn't live to see that day when that came to pass.

Hermione, dear Hermione, had managed to figure it out after hearing what Luna said, and admitted to Harry that Luna was right.

The earth was decaying faster every decade, the magic itself in the earth becoming weaker with every generation of child born. When she compared how powerful she had been at the age of 11, despite being a muggleborn, and compared it to Hugo and Rose who were raised around magic…she was ashamed to admit that together they were only a bit more powerful than she had been. And it hadn't been just her noticing it; before Harry knew it the classes at Hogwarts became smaller every year, most purebloods choosing to only have one child in the hopes that that would lessen the drain on magic.

But it never worked, nothing they tried work. Not until the muggleborns gathered together and began to brainstorm amongst themselves.

Humans began to wage war upon one another, and that was before they discovered the world of magic.

"Harry!" The older man looked up as Ron burst into the Auror office, his hair a mess and his freckled face pale. "Harry, you need to get out of here!" He cried, almost physically dragging his lifetime friend out of his chair and towards the door.

"What's going on, Ron?" Harry asked, correcting his glasses before he took a closer look at his friend. His green eyes widened at the sight of blood on Ron's robes, and the dirt streaked across his face. "Mate, what happened?!"

"The muggles, Harry! They found out about us and came with those big machines and planes, and attacked Diagon Alley! It's gone!"

The world had been exposed by the carelessness of the Obliviation Squad – a pureblood called Alexander Umbridge, to be exact. He, like his mother, had refused to believe that muggles posed any threat, and therefore did not listen to the warnings issued to all magic users around the world about the muggle uses of CCTV, satellite, and mobile phones. There had been a small incident in a downtown mall, and he ordered his team to obliviate everyone present. When asked about the cameras, he stated that he 'would take care of it', and used an isolated Bombarda to destroy the CCTV cameras out of sight of his team.

However, the muggles watching the CCTV saw what happened, and spread the world. Those muggles that forgot soon remembered when the CCTV footage was aired that night on the news, and widespread panic ensued. When the Prime Minister caved and admitted that he knew about magic and its users, he was promptly removed from his post by the Cabinet and the governments of the world fought over the information what several of them had been hiding.

During this time, war had been declared upon any country found to have been hiding magic from the rest of the world; a world that wanted to capture every last magical being and find out what made them use magic, and then they wanted to harness it for themselves.

The major shopping districts around the world were hit first, fear driving the muggles to bomb each location and send tanks and military personnel in to capture any survivors.

Hermione, dear sweet Hermione, had been in the alley that day with Hugo's son, buying his books for Hogwarts that year as he had just received his letter. After calming Ron down enough to talk, Harry found out that he hadn't heard from her since, and her ring (a Weasley pair that acted like the clock and let them know if the other was in good health), was cold on his finger.

It was a small mercy that Ron died before Harry discovered what exactly had happened to his dear friend in that camp.

He remembered seeing Death clearly for the first time that day, his Reapers flitting about the camp, trying in vain to push souls back into bodies…souls that were not meant to die yet it wasn't their time why were they dying-

And them Death stopped beside one soul, one who was kneeling on the ground beside the body of a small child, wrapped in his mother's arms.

Hermione had been captured and taken to the 'camps' – a testing ground for anyone unfortunate enough to have magic in their veins. She had undergone tests, torture, more tests, any blood rituals the doctors had been able to make 'willing' witches or wizards perform, and then seeing it all repeated on her grandson.

She broke; her wild tore from her body and soul, ripping through the camp and carving a crest of blood in the land. Death and Magic demanded a price, and Hermione, dear Merlin, Hermione willingly paid it.

Every soul that took part in the experiments was obliterated, and sweet Hermione asked that those who could not be saved by any means, be given a gentle passing. But the muggles had figured out one part of magic, and had tied each witch and wizard's blood to a keystone in order to have some measure of control over them. When Magic turned wild, it shattered the keystone, causing the instantaneous death of all magic users tied to it. Death tried to stop it, but Magic demanded blood for blood spilt, and it got what it wanted.

War had corrupted and torn Magic, and Magic tore free through the earth.

Hermione hadn't seemed at all surprised to see Harry, instead smiling at him in that gentle way she did when she was content and happy to see him. She had pieced it all together, she calmly stated to him; she knew that being the Master of Death had changed him forever. And she had at least hoped that he would be the one to let her pass on. She only asked Harry to spare Ron the details of what had happened to them, and Harry's heart broke as he wept at her acceptance of her fate. Death was surprisingly gentle as he took Hermione's hand in his own, and led her and her grandson away.

It was after this that he threw himself into the brainstorming with the muggleborns with reckless abandon, often staying until he fell asleep where he stood or sat. But eventually the idea began to take shape.

Hidden on Black Island, the same Island that Sirius had hidden on for several months after escaping in Harry's fourth year, the group of 70-odd magic users began to work their magic. Gathering all sorts of materials from the earth took time, and often only one of the team would make it back, the others having been caught and killed by the muggles, who were slowly but surely closing in on their location.

And with not even a day to spare, it was complete.

With a great groan and the rushing of water, Black Island slowly lifted out of the sea and into the sky.

And below them, the world turned red with fire as Magic destroyed everything it could reach before it slowly stopped, the fierce flames of Magic turning into embers, gently burning in the heart of the earth in rest.

So uh…damn. I didn't mean to kill off anyone that way, didn't know Black Island was gonna turn out to be Laputa…I had a rough idea of how humanity went downhill, and my brain + epic music playlist turned it into this.

I think I need a new playlist, yikes!