Disclaimer: I'm not JK Rowling.

I'm Besarien. Hi! This is my first story. I'm breaking it up into rather short chapters so I can continue to post often. It's not finished. In fact it's hardly started. There are five chapters written. I think this is a DM/HP SS/OC - but I'm open to suggestions on where else to take it. I do know it's going to be quite long. All reviews are welcome. Will do my best to return the favor too.

Time in a Bottle

At eight thirty eight pm GMT at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Theo Nott and Blaise Zabini toiled in one of the castles many storerooms, cleaning out a closet that didn't look as though it had been cleaned since Hogwarts was young. Filch had left them to it when Missus Norris informed him that other students were up to no good. It didn't matter to Filch how long it took them, since their detention wouldn't end and the storeroom wouldn't release them (thanks to Professor Snape) until the closet was clean and tidy- all without the use of magic. Filch loved his job!

It was a hot, dusty, grimy, claustrophobic task, but at least for Zabini and Nott, it was mildly interesting.

"Hey look at this," said Blaise holding out a ship in a bottle.

"Let me see that," said Theo, grabbing the neck. Blaise pulled it away. Both lost their grip. The bottle smashed on the stone floor sending shards of glass, bits of ship, and a rather smelly pale blue potion in all directions.

"Oh well done Theo, that's more a mess we'll have to clear up without magic," Blaise said glumly.

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At two thirty two pm EST Jane returned to her cabin stuffed from a long and thoroughly amazing lunch. The food alone would have been worth the price of her tickets had she bought them. To date, her cruise for two to Nassau was the best prize she had ever won, on the radio or anywhere else. Okay, so it was also the only prize she had ever won. It was still a really good one! She was sorry one of the two tickets had gone to waste.

Her sister Pam was supposed to accompany her, but dumped her to go to Aspen for Christmas with her lastest boyfriend, an extreme sports nut whose bleached blonde hair never moved no matter what cliff he was climbing up or jumping off. He and Pam had made their Aspen plans nearly a month ago, though Pam had only let Jane know at the very last moment. The whole incident was trademark Pam and shouldn't have been such a tremendous disappointment to her- not after all this time, not as well as she knew her sister.

It seemed everyone else she knew had plans. Most either wanted to spend Christmas at home with family or were stuck there with husbands, kids, and pets to look after. Jane simply didn't know the kind of people who could hop a cruise for the holidays with less than two day's notice, except for her sister of course. In the end Jane had offered the extra ticket to everyone- even to people she worked with and didn't like and practical strangers who lived in her building. There were no takers. It was a good thing too. She found out when she turned in the ticket that since she had named her sister as her travelling companion back six months ago when Pam agreed to accompany her, the ticket was made non-transferable.

But here she was, on a ship packed with strangers, still determined to have a decent time all by herself. She thought she was doing a better job of it than most people would in her situation. Jane was never terribly social. She had only a few passably good friends now as an adult. In her younger days she had been a pariah, not merely immensely unpopular at school, but ridiculed and shunned. She also knew that there were reasons for that. Thankfully most of those reasons didn't have a lot to do with her attractiveness or personality.

On the other hand, Pam her younger sister had to overcome all the same obstacles. Pamela had hurdled those obstacles making them seem no more than cracks in a sidewalk. Pam had things going for her that Jane did not. Pam was the prettier one and the more graceful one. Pam also had a personality that shone like the sun. People wanted to be around her, to bask in her light. No one ever seemed to notice that Pam cared only about Pam. Sometimes Jane thought that was the scar that Pam carried from the accident, the result of losing parents too young. Though Jane carried her own scars, sometimes she wondered if her sister wouldn't have turned out exactly the same regardless.

She didn't want to think about her sister today. She wanted to shave, put on her brand new one piece, and read the second of the three books she had brought with her on her free cruise. Yesterday by the same pool she had finished reading the sixth book in the Harry Potter series. That was before her legs had begun to stubble and the hair around her bikini line reappeared to cast that familiar dark shadow.

The bathroom in her cabin was a ridiculously tight squeeze. Shaving legs and other bits in there wasn't going to be easy. It didn't help that they were hitting what the Norwegian captain had called 'old seas.' Perhaps something was lost in translation? Maybe he had said 'odd seas?' As far as she could tell, what ever was odd or old about the ocean was the sea-going equivalent of the turbulence one experienced on planes. At least she did not seem prone to sea-sickness. Many of her fellow passengers, she had noticed, were not at lunch. The few she passed on her way back to her cabin had looked miserable with a capital M.

There was no way on earth that Jane was going to dry shave her legs, never mind her more sensitive parts. Jane decided that she might be able to shave her legs properly in one of three ways. She could shave her legs in the toilet bowl. This option held no appeal at all, though it might have been the easiest way to get the job done. The sink was rather high and set at an odd angle. If she were going to use that, she would have to stand with one foot on the toilet and one foot in the sink. It would be manageable providing the sea cooperated. She just wasn't feeling that lucky today. The last thing she wanted to do was give herself a broken leg for Christmas.

She decided on her third plan. This one seemed less dangerous than the second and had added benefits, namely she thought another shower would feel great. The one she'd taken this morning was rushed as she hadn't wanted to miss breakfast. God, her whole vacation seemed to be revolving around when the next meal was being served. She'd probably have to diet when she got home just to be comfortable in her clothes again. She didn't care. She'd never seen so much fabulous food and so many choices! All of them that she had found room to try were absolutely exquisite.

She undressed, grabbed her kit and before she turned the water on, stood in the shower figuring out just how she was going to carry out her third plan. The problem was that the shower offered sufficient space for her to stand in and not much more. A very large person would spend the cruise taking sink baths. In the shower, she was too tall to bend over to get at her legs. She doubted that a professional contortionist could have managed that way. She opened the door again. There! She'd just leave it open and sop up whatever water escaped with her towel after she was through with it.

Jane turned on the water. Nothing happened. Puzzled, she closed the door and turned the water on again. This time, the water jetted at her from three different directions, just as she remembered happening this morning. Great. So the water didn't spray unless the door was closed. Technology would be the end of her. Time for a fourth plan then.

She opened the door, kicked her right leg up grabbed her ankle then brought it over her head, back into the shower with her. She propped her heel high up on the tile and closed the shower door. Thank God she was still flexible enough to do a split. She figured older women either used the toilet or let their legs grow hairy. Perhaps seasoned cruisers all brought depilatory cream along with them. Even if she had known, she wouldn't have brought that stuff. It made her skin break out with huge pimples that looked a whole lot worse that having a bit of hair down there. Now with her leg above her head, she could not reach her shaving kit, of course. Screw this! Jane decided on a fifth plan and knew it was the way to go. She would take a hot shower, get out soaking wet, sit on the toilet still soaking wet sudsing herself all over with her shaving cream, shave leisurely, then get back in the shower to rinse. She'd worry about the tremendously huge mess that she was going to make after she was finished. Happy with her plan, she opened the door again. Just then, at precisely two thirty eight pm EST, the ship lurched sharply. She lost her one footed balance on the slippery tile and fell out of the shower, with her head aimed directly at- well, at the head. The last thing she remembered was pain.

-tbc