Finally found time to cross-post my In Another Life fest piece. Many thanks to Kyonomiko and In Dreams for devising such a fun and innovative challenge.
This story is seven chapters long and complete. I'll post an update every, um, twelve hours or so.

Prompt: Witch Hunt AU - Two rival magic practitioners are being hunted under suspicion of magic, and must help one another escape. DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but this so-called plot.

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Desolation.

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It was a warm summer's day when Dolores Umbridge acceded to the presidency of the Republic of Diagon.

And everything went to hell.

Her campaign had been a whirlwind of steam and fire. She stood, a stout and dumpy woman in pink, behind podiums across the nation, delivering speech after speech that seared into the primal insecurities of the masses and roused them to frenzy. Her voice poured out of megaphones placed at every street corner. It bleared out of radios in homes and barber shops.
Her broad, flaccid face and protruding eyes blistered on the covers of magazines, on posters and billboards. It showed up on every television screen – in living rooms, in the display windows of electronic shops, on the cashier's counter at the grocer's...

She pressed bows and kisses on the heads of new born babies as their parents beamed. She ate meals with the poor, she played with kittens at animal shelters. She was one of the people, she was an ally, she was a true citizen of Diagon.

The one's that weren't, she claimed, the ones who believed themselves to be outside and above, were the ones with Magic.

"The Magical Ones have no accountability!" she raged.
"The Magical Ones never have to worry about water and medical bills!" she thundered.
"The Magical Ones use their powers for their own benefits alone!" she screamed.
"The Magical Ones are making your jobs redundant!" she bellowed.

"Down with Magic! Down with Magic! Down with Magic!" The crowd volleyed and chanted.

Two days after she gained power, she abolished the electorate.

Three days after that, she assumed the title of The High Inquisitor.

A week later, began the purge.

A country that had existed in harmony for centuries plunged into chaos. Magical households were razed to the ground. Men and women were slaughtered in front of their screaming children, or dragged outside and set aflame at the Plaza.
Umbridge's Inquisitorial Army was equipped with shields and magic dampers that brought even the strongest sorcerers to their knees. Anyone non-Magical who tried to intervene was mere collateral.

The hunt went on for weeks, and there was seldom a moment that wasn't filled with shrieks, wails, gunshots, or explosions. The streets were lined with sensors and traps – nobody was safe.

And thus devastated, the remaining lot of Magical Ones fled. Risking the triggers, they disillusioned themselves, and ran to the towering peaks by the border. Then they descended deep underground, miles and miles below the surface, into long abandoned mines.

That was to be their new home.