AN: This was written for Round 4 for the QFL.

Prompt: Apocalypse

Wordcount: 1, 042

Content warnings: None—this is a sort of apocalypse for the Wizarding World—the Statue of Secrecy is irrevocably broken.

"Madam Ravenwood, you need to come take a look at this."

Tabitha Ravenwood turned her head towards the Magical Law Enforcement Officer that was looking at a muggle computer that they had managed to rig up. It had been important to Tabitha, who had grown up around muggles, that they keep up with the changing times. They had done so with the radio, and despite the protests of her superior ranking officers, Tabitha knew the same had to be done with the internet.

And yet, she wasn't prepared for what she was seeing on Prewett's screen.

"What is this?" Tabitha squinted—on the modem was a YouTube video. Shaky, grainy footage—likely taken and uploaded on an old cellphone. The post date was about an hour ago—and a quick glance at the recommendations bar to the side boasted similar titles and thumbnails of what exactly was happening in front of her.

The video depicted two girls in ordinary clothing behind the bushes, dueling—whether for sport or for a more serious matter, Tabitha wasn't sure.

"Two witches—the real deal, they're fighting from what I can tell." Prewett pushed his glasses up his nose. He'd recently gotten circular spectacles in the hopes that he would look more like their savior, Harry Potter. Instead, he looked like every dork who'd ever chosen to wear circled spectacles, save for Potter and Sir Elton John. "I've been looking—seems that a lot of people saw this."

"I don't understand." Tabitha frowned, trying to keep her composure. Her voice was as flat as the papers strewn all over Prewett's desk, as cold as the marble floor of the Ministry's atrium. It was the best disguise for the panic causing her heart to beat out of control, the ice water running through her veins, and the tingling at her fingertips. "I recognize the park—that's Hyde Park. That's a very public place. Those girls are likely Hogwarts students—they should know better than to settle any petty grudges there, of all places."

"Doesn't matter, I don't know how this fell past our usual sensors and filters." Prewett continued to click through videos of varying quality. "Some of these are reposts— but too many of them aren't."

Tabitha's heart-shaped face blanched when she saw some of the view counts.

She stepped away from Prewett's desk. "Submit copyright claims or whatever you have to do to get those videos taken down—we can't Obliviate everyone who's seen it, but we can at least keep it from spreading."

"On it." Prewett flexed his fingers and began typing rapidly, with a speed that slightly scared Tabitha.

But there were also far scarier things on her mind right now than how fast Evander Prewett could type on a muggle computer despite being a born and raised pureblood.

"Sophie?" Tabitha called out. "Sophie—I need to you to check—"

"I know." Sophie Noble's voice was very small. "Madam Ravenwood, you should see—"

The curly-haired witch stood from her desk and used a remote to turn on the TV that was hooked up to her own modem through the muggles' near-magical technology.

"Merlin's beard," Tabitha hissed as she raised a ring-covered hand to her mouth.

There was a blonde reporter with a gleam in her eye. Tabitha couldn't hear what she was saying—her brain refused to parse the words. Besides, the grim black banner at the bottom was enough to make her knees weak.

WITCHES IN HYDE PARK—POSSIBILITY OF MORE? A DANGER TO LONDON.

This was their worst nightmare. Never had the Statute of Secrecy been so thoroughly breached since 1927, when Newt Scamander unleashed his magical creatures on New York City and that Obscurus ran rampant.

That had nearly been impossible to come back from.

This was absolutely impossible to.

But Tabitha had to try—she didn't get this job and she wasn't sorted into Hufflepuff at age eleven for a lack of what politely was called tenacity. She was stubborn enough to see any and all commitments to the end—and that included this hopeless situation.

"Alright." She formed her hand into a fist over her lips as her mind raced—she struggled to remember what it was they could do. There were other questions on her mind—how did this slip by them, how did it get so big in the first place?

But those questions were for later.

"Have they identified those girls?" Tabitha asked.

"No, I don't think so," Noble admitted.

"I need you to comb the reports." She turned to Prewett. "I need you to see if you can match them up—those girls are in immediate danger, they likely live nearby and their faces are plastered all over the telly."

They chorused their aye-ayes and began typing. Tabitha began her march out of the tiny Interwebs Monitoring Squad office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's floor. She had to go all the way to the top. She would rather eat fifty earwax-favored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans than tell the Minister, the legendary heroine Hermione Granger, that the apocalypse, the closest thing to the end of the world that Tabitha could picture was upon them.

She started running, despite that her high-heeled black boots out of a muggle storybook about witches weren't exactly optimal for her sprint. But she couldn't Apparate within the limits of the Ministry, and the Minister had to know.

More importantly, Tabitha had to tell Granger herself what had happened, and take whatever consequences came for her team. It wasn't Prewett or Noble's fault that they hadn't been able to spot it sooner.

In fact, it was damn near a miracle that they had managed this far with only three members of the squad. She had begged for more funds, more technomancers to help for years. But they were still dealing with the fallout of the war against You-Know-Who and hunting down the last of his followers, there hadn't been even a Knut to spare.

But she had to face it—the end of their world had come. There was no coming back from this.

Tabitha only hoped that she could act soon enough to usher in the new world.