Of the Harry Potter books, I have only read up to book four, Goblet of Fire. After that, I rather lost interest in the series, especially as the books became fatter and slower, and it became clearer that Rowling's universe is held together with duct tape and deus ex machinas. Oh, and Harry Potter, our dear little Galahad, is as passive and thick as a tree.
The unfinished and abandoned crossover Culture Shock was a promising exploration of help from outer space, especially in its treatment of magic as manipulation of both hyperspace layers. Alas, it will never continue, I believe.
This drabble is based on the supposition that while space cannot be conquered using muggle methods, it can if you use magical ones. Also it borrows from Alan Dean Foster's Design For Great-Day no small amount...
Physics tells us, in no uncertain terms, that many things are impossible, such as artificial gravity and faster than light anything. Magic tells physics, in no uncertain terms, where it can shove its impossibilities.
The probe currently in high orbit above Earth had pretty much demonstrated that to anyone who knew where to look and what for; in other words, nobody in the Sol system. On the other hand, its operators, aboard an industrial raft on an ocean world about twenty-seven light years away, were delighted at its performance.
"That," declared Group Leader Tharrap li Hazramond FHH, "was a textbook Zero Contact insertion." He lifted his face from his display; the cessation of total awareness of the probe's every function was a welcome relief.
The rest of the Contact group were still under the influence of their displays, the tripartite Qu!dr'tian rune plates obscuring their faces, transferring telemetry directly into their brains. Outside the module they were assigned for this job, a flock of spotted skywings fled from sky to sea, pursued by darkening clouds. The raft was too large for the vibration to be felt, but Tharrap was sure that he could feel the raft turning either itself or its wind wards about to fend off the coming storm.
Despite the ocean's bounty of biological, chemical and magical resources, unprotected by any native sapients, Thrass was no place for the complacent. With no landmasses to block and absorb their energies, storm winds on this planet could reach supersonic speeds – more than enough to blow a raft's superstructure apart.
Tharrap went to the potions vendor – Them Upstairs couldn't spring for even an office mess, could they? – and chose a destresser. Following a UAV into and then out of Drive tended to be disorientating at best and heart-stopping at worst. The last thing he needed was to angst over why Contact had selected a module four vulnerable stories above the waterline on a world where standing tall could get you literally blown away...
"Ma'lik Ta'aa!" The curse was vehement as well as incredulous.
All thoughts of murderous meteorology banished, Tharrap looked in surprise at his Communication Leader. Galissty was leaning well back, pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes scrunched up as if in pain, overlarge ears actually twitching. Not a good sign in someone as magically powerful as an Alph.
"What is it? Need a headache dose?"
Galissty shook his head. "Too many damn languages! And I'm getting drowned in EM audio – both amplitude and frequency modulated – and then there's at least two different video formats as well – and then there's the thaumatic modulated signals – and that's just the analogue formats!"
"That's what your juniors are for," Tharrap responded, neck spines flexing with amusement. "Farm translations off to them by geographical region or something."
The Alph just glared at him. "Truly the mighty Tharrap li Hazramond is a wise and great wizard," he sing-songed sarcastically, "but to be frank I've got a bad feeling about this one. There's thousands if not millions of EM transmissions and only about a hundred thaumatic – tops."
Biological Leader jerked her head out of her display and glowered at Alph and Pirrx equally. "When you've finished your little confab," she snapped, "I need video of the sapients, thank you very much."
"Fine, fine," Galissty grumbled, leaning nose-first into his display, "I'll just send you all the pretty pictures, and Translation & Culture can play word games, and what will Engineering and Navigation do? Sit on their..." his speech slurred and halted as he became meshed in the display, setting up pipes to feed that side of Contact focussed on comprehending what they, and soon the rest of the Association, were looking at.
After all, you can't go from Zero to First without adequate grounding.
They find out about Harry, of course. That was quite the outburst of magic. I see them bringing their UAV along about 1975 or so, spending the next five Earth years trying to figure out all our cultures' idiosyncracies, learning about the magical war – and then Harry make boom.
Remus is contacted by the aliens as well – perhaps he stumbles upon them when they decide to 'abduct' Harry. He becomes their primary agent, aided and abetted by their superior technomancy and spells unknown to human ken. More importantly, he becomes Harry's sole human caregiver in Association space.
Contact, and by extension the Association, find themselves confronted with a situation which could see the extinction of a vital subset of the human race. Unfortunately, they have to deal with two radically different worlds, and more importantly, the well-meaning obstruction of Albus Dumbledore...
The story would probably require multiple 'books': Zero Contact would set much of the scene; First Contact would be about Harry's first years in the Earth wizarding world; Second Contact would put the kibosh on Voldemort's return; the series finally ending in Third Contact, when the aliens finally reveal themselves to Earth – as if they had a choice.
In other words, just another concept too huge to handle.
And besides, the past really is a foreign country. No cellphones, no internet, why, not even Atari consoles or colour TV!