You know what story I’d like to see from the Harry Potter universe? A story where the Wizarding World and the non-magic world actually finally collide and work together and it’s… fine. Like, not perfect, obviously, but better than before because christ look at how much each world is keeping from each other! Well-trained magic-users could well be able to end diseases of the non-magic world; non-magic scientists could work out a way to banish Dementors, to restore souls even – science can already quite literally bring people back from the dead –
Natural disasters? Powerful magic users could potentially divert hurricanes and earthquakes, or at least minimize their damage. Your fantastic beasts have escaped? Well, we can use these satellites to pinpoint and track their locations. You wanna explore space, visit Mars maybe? The combination of cutting-edge science and cutting-edge magic can help with that. There’s so much potential there!
(There would be horrible things as well of course. A magic user gone rogue would probably be able to do a lot more damage than a non-magic user, for example. Things would probably be really tricky and terrible in the early days of this alliance. But ultimately, I really do think the positive would outweigh the negative.)
I don’t think this is a story JKR is ever going to write. I’d like to write it.
DAY 9 OF THE ALLIANCE
“I’ve got tomorrow’s Muggle papers here,” Ron said. “The non-magic papers,” he corrected himself.
“Right,” said Hermione. She hadn’t slept properly in several days, and it showed. “Just put them anywhere on the desk, Ron.”
Ron added them to the pile of stuff. Hermione took a drink of something Ron didn’t recognise – was it a Muggle concoction? It looked disgusting – and sighed. The curtains were still drawn, because there were still cameras and photographers lined up on the lawn.
“Please get some sleep,” he told his wife.
“Let’s look at the papers first,” said Hermione.
She placed a copy of The Times next to a copy of The Daily Prophet. One of them was in colour, and the other one was in movement.
“Gifs,” said Rose. She still hadn’t gone to bed.
“What?” said her mother.
“That’s what the Muggles call moving pictures. Gifs. Did you know that? I didn’t know that.”
“Another bit of bloody lingo,” grumbled Ron.
“Prime Minister seeks list of wizard ‘undesirables’“ Hermione read from the front page of The Times.
“No-one’s been referred to as ‘undesirable’ in years!” Ron said. Hermione shushed him.
“Wizarding Pinkstone Accords meet with protests….What happens next?…Worldwide fears over magic grow…The Quibbler is full of nothing but praise, though, and suggestions for combining magic and Muggle technology…”
“Werewolves could soon be claiming YOUR benefits,” Rose read from the Daily Mail.
“And oh! The Daily Star has just uncovered the sex tape of a D-list celebrity, so nothing from them. But this isn’t looking good.” With a sudden sweep of her wand, Hermione sent all the newspapers, including the wizarding world ones, into the waste paper basket. “Rose, your brother’s been asleep for ages. You should follow suit.”
Rose nodded and made as if to get up when Ron stopped her.
“Rose, what do you think of this? This alliance? It’ll affect your generation most of all.”
“I…” Rose stared down at the piles of papers on her mother’s desk. They were magically increasing by the minute. “They don’t teach you much about Muggles at school. Not unless you take Muggle studies. And Granny Granger was dead by the time I went to Hogwarts, and Grandad was in that nursing home…”
Hermione’s lips pursed in a strange way.
“They just tell you Muggles are stupid at school,” Rose finished helplessly. “When I did Muggle Studies, none of the pureblood kids in the class believed for one second that Muggles had created a rocket and flown to the moon…” She pointed one finger at the ceiling, where the moon wasn’t. “Or that they had, like…tracking machines in space. Or organ transplants, or an Internet, or any of that stuff.”
“I didn’t believe it either when you told me,” Ron said to Hermione cheerfully. But Hermione did not look remotely cheerful. An owl was flapping at the window and the people outside were shouting at each other to take pictures of it.
“Okay. Okay. To bed now, please, Rose,” Hermione said, and Rose went. The stairs creaked as she hurried up them to the relative safety or her bedroom. As Ron let in the owl a hundred cameras seemed to go off at once. It was like being in a middle of a lightening storm.
“We have a lot of work to do,” said Hermione.