"When Worlds Collide"

Author's Note: This story is kind of just a weird idea I had when I was working on my other HP/DBZ fic. I don't really know where it will go, but I thought it might amuse some of you.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

"Excuse me! Sorry!"

She had her eyes set on the red telephone box across the street as she made her way through an unusually large crowd of muggles. Ignoring their stares, she clung a little more tightly on the robes in her arms as she came to the corner.

It wasn't that she particularly wanted to live amongst muggles – it's just that the starting job in the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures didn't exactly pay very well, and wizard housing wasn't exactly cheap. There was also no rule she could find against bewitching muggle landlords to lower one's rent either.

Since she was promoted to the Office of Magical Law Enforcement, her salary had become considerably higher, but also, with a nasty break up with her boyfriend the year before, she hadn't felt particularly motivated to search for a new place to live.

She came to the corner and glanced quickly to the right. Seeing nothing, she began a fast stride across the way.

BEEEEEPPP!

Three quarters of the way across, she was startled into looking up to her left. Her eyes widened – there was a lorry less than ten feet away from her, and it had no intention of braking.

With the knowledge that there was no time to pull out her wand to save herself, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut and waited for the impact.

The impact came, though it didn't hurt like she expected it to. She assumed the reason for this – and the also the reason that she was still conscious – was that she was actually dead. Death had taken her. She was slightly puzzled though, as to why she felt so comfortable in Death's arms, and why Death himself happened to be so warm. Regardless, she latched herself on to him, not wanting to give up the sense of security she felt emanating from him, as odd as it was.

She felt herself being lowered to the ground, so she clung tighter, still refusing to open her eyes. Only when she heard a voice begin to speak to her did she slowly open them.

"Hey, it's alright. You can let go."

She looked around – she was still in London.

"I'm…I'm not dead?" she looked up at the man who had apparently saved her. The look of concern in his dark eyes only seemed to highlight his handsomeness.

"You very nearly were, dear!" an elderly woman spoke up from the crowd beginning to form around them. "If it hadn't been for that young man running out into the street to save you!"

"By George, I've never seen anyone move so fast in my life!" a large, mustached man spoke up. "Are you going to be in the next Olympics, my boy?"

"No sir," he replied, blushing, then turning back to her, he asked, "Are you able to walk? Let me help you up."

She gave a slight nod and took his hand. As he pulled her up, the crowd began to clear, judging that there was not much else to see. She wobbled slightly, and he put his other hand on her shoulder to steady her.

"Thank you. Really," she managed to say, looking up at him sincerely. "I mean, I really don't know how I can ever repay you – you saved my life!"

He smiled shyly.

"Just don't worry about it. Where were you headed to in such a hurry anyway?"

"Just to that telephone box over there," she replied rather embarrassedly, noticing that he was slightly puzzled at her anxiety over it. He, being a muggle, wouldn't have understood that her timeliness in the workplace depended on getting to the booth by a certain time, so she made up an excuse as to why she needed to go there. "My phone at home is broken, and I was expecting an important call on it. I guess I must have missed it though."

It isn't entirely a lie, I guess. My phone is broken because I don't even have a phone.

He looked concerned again.

"Maybe you should try calling them back. Here, let me walk you over there."

She nodded and let him lead her to the telephone box.

"Thank you again," she said after opening the door.

"Good luck with the call," he replied with a nod.

She watched as he turned around and began a trek down the street. Turning back to the telephone, she quickly dialed 62442. Upon hearing the response on the other end, she quickly stated:

"Hermione Granger, Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"Thank you Miss Granger," the phone replied. "You are now being transported to the Ministry of Magic."

She took the pass that was issued, then feeling herself begin to descend into the ministry, she pulled her robes on over her clothes. Upon arrival, she ran to the nearest lift as fast as her shaken up legs would take her, and took it to the second level. Taking a deep breath before stepping off the lift, she held her chin up and walked as calmly as possible into the Improper Use of Magic Office.

"Well, well, Miss Granger," her supervisor, Mafalda Hopkirk drawled, peering over her glasses at the young woman. "Late, are we?"

Since the war ended, Mafalda had been promoted to head of the division, and she had developed a bit of a superiority complex about it. Not only that, she held a personal grudge against Hermione for her short stint of impersonating her with polyjuice potion in order to break into the Ministry.

"If we could apparate into the Ministry, I'd have been on time," Hermione returned. "However, I ran into some trouble with a muggle lorry."

"A lorry?" Mafalda looked confused. "What, by Merlin's beard, is that?"

"Don't worry about it," Hermione called back to her, stepping into her own office.

A few minutes later, Mafalda followed her in with a stack of parchments floating next to her.

"We've recently found a new way to track unregistered witches and wizards, and you, my dear, get to do a little bit of field work for it."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but shut it when Mafalda sent her a glare and kept talking.

"Basically we're now able to detect beings with magical capabilities who have thus yet remained unaffiliated with the wizarding community. Here's the list of names we've recovered so far. Most of them are located in remote regions or nations that don't have a competent ministry, or even a ministry at all."

She flicked her wand and the stack of parchments plopped itself onto Hermione's desk.

"What exactly do you want me to do though?" Hermione asked, gaping.

"Go affiliate them! All magic users must register as a matter of safety!" Mafalda snapped, as if it had been completely obvious. "Either convince them to pay a visit to this Ministry, or their respective nation's ministry in order to register, or if they refuse to do so, question them about important topics so that we can create a file for them. Do as many as you can during your working hours. The process will continue each day until the list is exhausted."

Hermione suppressed a groan as Mafalda stalked out. Glancing at the stack though, she was relieved to see that there was only one name per parchment, and that she would just have to try her best to fill in what was missing.

Pulling herself up from her desk (which she had barely sat at anyway), she traced her own steps back from the office to the Atrium of the Ministry, this time opting to take the Floo Network to the destination nearest the first recipient on her list.

She read the name and location: Dulcinea Ezili, Haiti. Just my luck.

Ten minutes after five, Hermione dragged herself back into her office to make sure she wasn't leaving anything behind before she went home for the day.

"Where were you at lunch?" a voice behind her suddenly spoke up. "I came in to see if you wanted to grab a bite with me, but you were gone!"

"Harry!" Hermione turned around, pleasantly surprised. It was definitely a perk to have one of her best friends working in the Auror's Office just down the hall.

"Oh, I was only out dodging voodoo hexes while trying to find out if some girl was a registered animagus, or if she had her apparation license," she rolled her eyes.

Harry raised his eyebrows.

"Care to elaborate while we pick up some dinner?"

She grinned and followed him out of the Ministry.

"So she threw all this on you because you were late?" Harry unceremoniously shoved a chip in his mouth.

"Well, I think she was planning to throw it all on me regardless," Hermione explained. "But the fact that I was late made it worse."

"Why were you late anyway," Harry swallowed. "That's not really like you…"

Hermione sighed and explained the events of the morning.

"And…and I just can't stop thinking about that guy! About how he ran out and saved my life, about how he was able to run out in the street and grab me when I didn't even have time to pull out my wand! He was incredible Harry – I don't know how he did it!"

She looked up to see a knowing smile on Harry's face.

"What!" she snapped, pretending to be offended.

"Let's just avoid pulling a stunt like Merope Gaunt did, now shall we?"

She gasped and crossed her arms at the comment.

"Sometimes I wonder why we're even still friends," she muttered, before bursting into laughter with him.

End Note: Eh, slow start. There will be more of a plot with the next chapter. By the way, new chapters for my other stories should be going up sometime this week.