A/N: Almost all criticism is welcome. The one criticism I'll probably ignore, though, is the fact that I'm probably Americanizing with words and idioms without realizing it. If you point out a specific instance, I might change it, but it's not an important piece for me. Sorry if that annoys or upsets you, but not sorry enough to change it.

Harry got a couple good years out of the Auror's office after Voldemort fell, cleaning up the death eaters that had elected to go into hiding. It left a bitter taste in Harry's mouth though-Draco Malfoy and several other particularly rich or influential death eaters ended up being what amounted to a slap in the wrist in comparison to their crimes. After all the old death eaters had been rounded up, however, there wasn't much for Harry to do. Dark wizards weren't common, and ones powerful enough to pose a serious threat were even less so. The little work Harry had to do was boring. Shutting down merchants who tried selling dark artifacts didn't give the same adrenaline rush that scraping yourself to survival did. Not that Harry would admit to anyone else, or even himself, that the job bored him. That didn't mean nobody noticed, however.

After a few years of what amounted to jobs any one of his subordinates could do and cabinets full of paperwork, the Department of Mysteries offered him a job. It happened shortly after Harry made a mistake in what would have otherwise been a routine arrest. Any other person would have died in that incident-an enchanted sword through the carotid artery and trachea would've been hard to survive in most circumstances-but apparently the entity known as Death wasn't inclined to take its master. Although Harry was glad to have survived, for a couple days he angrily tried to reduce the resurrection stone and elder wand to powder. It didn't work.

A few Unspeakables quickly became interested in Harry after this. Harry wasn't really studious enough to qualify as an Unspeakable in most cases, but immunity from death had tantalizing uses for study in the death chamber. The job sounded tantalizing for Harry too, and the fact that the department was willing to be a bit more lenient with how long he had to train for the position was definitely a plus. Over the next couple decades, Harry had many adventures in the death chamber and past the veil. As entertaining as many of them are, if embellished a bit, I'm not here to tell you those stories. I'm here to tell you about how he saved the world yet again, as he's developed a bit of a habit for it.

MARCH 3 2022, Department of Mysteries Death Chamber

"What's on the itinerary today, Pollux?" asked Harry, looking into the cauldron next to the Veil suspiciously. Pollux Tyndarid was Harry's main coworker. Although he worked with all the Unspeakables, Pollux was the only one who spent as much time in the death chamber as Harry. Harry sometimes helped out in the other rooms, and over the decades developed a good grasp on their subjects, but was mostly indifferent to work outside the death room.

"This is that potion we started working on a while ago-the one that gives it's drinker temporary death sense, or at least we hope," Pollux replied. Harry was a little disgusted with this particular project. He didn't know why someone would want to take a potion that could detect the presence of death. Knowing you, or someone around you, is going to die soon is not a pleasant experience. Harry sometimes wondered if the experiments his department sometimes did would be ruled Dark Arts. Of course, it's not like he could have let the information slip to anyone.

Pollux was transferring some of the potion into a phial-the ladle was lead so the potion was presumably very reactive-when Saul Croaker came into the room and yelled, "Come into the space chamber!"

Pollux sighed and dumped the potion back into the cauldron. Harry followed Pollux over to Saul and asked, "I assume there's something imp-"

Harry didn't finish his sentence. He had happened to see Neptune, except that it didn't look like Neptune. It looked distorted, like he was looking at it through someone else's glasses. Pollux circled the space in front of Neptune a few times and then said, "So the space-time around Neptune is being distorted."

Saul said, "Yeah. I'm going to guess it's a wormhole. If it was a black or white hole I think we would have noticed it when it first appeared, and not by seeing it."

Harry couldn't add much to the conversation, so he jumped at the opportunity to ask a pertinent question while he still could, "When did it appear?"

"I noticed it right before I got you, and it definitely wasn't here when I came in, so sometime between then and now."

Pollux spoke up, "It looks a lot like we though a wormhole would, I admit, but do you really think a wormhole could stay stable?"

"I wouldn't bet anything that it would naturally, but something sentient could put it there."

"... And the Muggles don't have anything in that area right now..."

There was a pause for a few moments while this sunk in on everyone.

Harry interrupted, "Saul, don't you think I would have noticed if there were unearthly sentient beings beyond the veil?"

Pollux waved it off, "They might not die, or die the same way as us. There is the question though, if they're trying to contact us why would they put it way out by Neptune? It would take hours to get there from here at lightspeed."

Saul sighed, "They have the technology to create a stable wormhole, I'm sure they have the technology to get here. If their species can do magic then maybe they've magically enhanced their ships or something. Either way, are you going to bet that a stable wormhole just appeared out of nowhere?"

"Right," replied Pollux. Pollux pulled out a mirror from his robes and shouted at it, "Kingsley Shacklebolt."

After a few minutes Shacklebolt appeared in the mirror looking a little impatient and saying, "What is it Tyndarid? I'm a little busy right now."

Pollux frowned and said, "I need permission for a bit of a... large breach of the Statute of Secrecy."

Shacklebolt raised an eyebrow and said, "I can send an owl for the ICW but I highly doubt-"

Pollux cut in, "Sir, we don't have time for owls. There could be problems in possibly minutes from now if we don't act immediately."

Shacklebolt's head had been moving as if he were attending to other things during the conversation, but now it stopped. He looked straight at Pollux as he asked, "What kind of problems?"

"We don't know for certain, but the worst case scenario would be a war with a completely unknown species. The only thing we know about them is that they have access to technology and/or magic far beyond ours."

"And why do we need to contact the Muggles for this?"

"They almost certainly are also aware of the threat and would probably see any interaction we made with the species. If the species is hostile, then they would be hostile to the Muggles as well as us. Because none of the ministers for magic has ever made room in the budget for a proper space program, we have very little power to actually interact with the species. Only the Muggles have the ability to do that right now, although their technology is nowhere close to the alien species."

"Are you saying that we might be facing an alien invasion?"

"Yes."

There was a long pause during which Kingsley seemed to age considerably before he said, "I'll go to the Muggle prime minister and see about getting you in contact with the Muggles. I'll notify the ICW of my actions. If I'm removed from office because of this... agh, you didn't summon the buggers."

As Kinglsey slipped off of the mirror, Harry turned to Pollux and asked, "Uh, so, what actually is your plan?"

Pollux emphatically turned his attention to Saul, who then said, "Hell if I know. Isn't this your area of expertise, Harry? You're the only one here who's had to deal with... hostiles."

Harry shook his head as he threw it up, "You think the Muggles have a plan for dealing with aliens?"

Saul frowned, "They do, but it's not a good one. Basically when they notice this alien presence, they're going to get everyone important together and figure out what to do."

"Merlin's beard," cursed Pollux.

MARCH 4 2022, 1200 GMT, United Nations Office at Geneva

Harry, Pollux, Saul, and Kingsley were the only British wizards that actually went to the meeting, although they had brought many more people with them who stayed at a hotel. So did everyone else. People from all sorts of governments, both Muggle and wizarding had arrived. The four of them had taken a translation potion, but they partially wished they hadn't. It made it a bit harder to drown out all the talking when everyone seemed to be speaking your language than when they weren't. Everyone there looked stressed, lugging things around, talking to each other in strained tones. The Muggles seemed to have it worse, though, probably because most of them had just become aware of the existence of magical societies. Indeed, many Muggles were eyeing anyone wearing robes with suspicion, though several of the wizards had their own superior disdainful looks to give in return.

"Hello, if you all could find your assigned seats for today's meeting, discussion will begin shortly. For the technologically impaired, the reason my voice is so loud right now is a bit of technology called a microphone."

There was a binder they were supposed to read describing several technologies, the people they would see here, and the structure of the Muggle governments. However, that binder was several inches thick and they only had perhaps seven hours to read it, so only Pollux and Kingsley made any real progress on that front. Fortunately, they weren't the only wizarding group which was wide-eyed and confused as they made their way to their seats. There were headsets on their seats, although they couldn't really figure out what to do with them until they watched the Muggles put them on their heads. As they did so, a recording played of a man saying that they would be listening to translators via the headset, and that if they wanted to speak they should press the blue button on their desk, but to please refrain from speaking while someone else already was, and that volume was controlled by a dial on their desk. Harry had to show Pollux, Saul, and Kingsley how a dial worked. The recording also explained that in case of a vote, the green button was yea, the red button was nay, and that abstaining from vote was almost always an option.

It's hard to say whether the Muggles were more shocked by the existence of magic, or the wizards were shocked by the complexity of technology that day.

After a few moments, the voice that had told everyone to go to their seats over the PA system came through the headset, "This is a very unique situation. Most likely it is going to take everyone's cooperation to be successful in handling it. Rest assured that everyone's voices will be heard, but as it stands, of those represented presently, NASA and the CNSA have the best astronautical technology. This is followed by the RFSA and the AMSRU. For those who don't know, NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration and is American, CNSA stands for the Chinese National Space Administration, RFSA stands for the Russian Federal Space Administration, and AMSRU stands for the Asian Magical Space Research Unit."

Shacklebolt scratched his chin, "I wasn't aware that something called AMSRU existed."

Harry chuckled, "Obviously. Foreign relations isn't our strong suit, especially outside Europe."

Around the room, people reached over to press the buttons that would let them speak, and on a screen on the wall several names appeared. One of them became highlighted and the other names fell away as people took their fingers off their buttons. A woman spoke, "Hello. This is Melanie Klein, here representing NASA and the United States. Our official position is that we want to avoid hostilities as much as we can. By all indications, whatever created this wormhole is far more advanced than us and determining if its intentions are malevolent seems like a good first step. In any case, giving a hostile appearance would be unwise."

The reactions to this statement were mixed, from complete disgust to vigorous agreement. The position of the CNSA was almost the complete opposite-open up negotiations but prepare for planetary defense. Any negotiations should end in them removing their wormhole, because having a direct line from their home to ours would be unsafe, especially when we could not see them coming down that line. The RFSA took a more moderate position, saying we open up negotiations amicably while also setting up defense. It would give mixed signals, but hopefully the aliens would understand that we had to be careful. The AMSRU believed that all efforts should go into keeping the aliens away from earth. It was unknown if the aliens could communicate by normal means, if they would be willing to communicate, or if their communications would be honest. The strategy was to play defense at all costs.

The other parties spoke and had their opinions, but for the most part their views could be summarized in these few views. Discourse went on for hours and groups seemed to solidify into these positions even more strongly, each becoming more detailed in their plans. At 1700 a recess was called for two hours.