A Different Kind of Magic--UNDERGOING EDIT

Chapter 4- An Albanach Dlúthchara

Professor Snape opened his eyes to the sight of a pretty young girl with dark chestnut hair and skin like newly fallen snow. Not hard on the eyes, came the unbidden thought while he carefully studied this new face. She was busy fiddling with yet another contraption she was trying to wrap around the middle finger of his left hand. Fascinated, he watched as she bit her plump, pink lower lip in concentration. Finally, she gave a great huff and tossed the whole thing off to the side into a basket, where he assumed the other medical devices were kept. She startled slightly when she caught him looking at her with his piercing black eyes.

"Och, good mornin', Mr. Snape," she chirped in a distinctly Scottish accent. Her brogue wasn't as thick as some he'd heard, thank goodness. Half the time, he felt the Scottish talked as if their mouths were full of shite. "Mah nam is Miss Donnelly. I'll be takin' caur ay ye oan th' day shift. Miss Hermione has bin lookin' efter ye at nicht. Aam plait tae say yer fever broke early thes morn when Miss Hermione was watchin' ower ye. Ye gae us quite a scaur th' pest few days. It's a real treat tae see ye waukin' efter aw thes time!" She flashed him a brilliant smile with pearl-white teeth and stunning golden-brown eyes, almost as dark as the color of her hair.

This girl is Scottish? he wondered in silent contemplation. He pondered as to where the unusual coloring came from. Unfortunately, he was forced to reassess his previous conviction about her accent and place her in the speaking with shite in her mouth category. Still, as such, she wasn't unpleasant on his ears or on the eyes, so he tried his best to only smirk a little bit, if there was such a thing for him.

"Miss Hermione tells me we ur startin' ye wi' ice cheps sae ye can gab, sae 'at is th' first hin' oan uir agenda thes morn!" She grinned haphazardly and brought the ice chips over to the bed. "Ur ye ready, Mr. Snape?" she asked, poised with an ice chip. He looked at her doubtfully. She seemed like she was going to have way too much fun with this. Despite his hesitation, Severus nodded once and opened his mouth for the ice chip feeding frenzy.

Half an hour, an entire cup of ice chips, and enough Scottish chatter to drive him practically insane, Miss Donnelly asked him if he was ready to try and speak. Carefully, as if not trusting his voice to work after his previous two attempts, he managed to scrape out, "What the hell happened to me, and how the fuck did I end up in this shithole?" His voice sounded like a bulldozer had crushed his throat and he had had to pop his voice box back into shape, like one of those Muggle cartoons. Still, he could speak, and everyone around him was going to catch hell for the misery he was in.

Miss Donnelly seemed taken aback for a minute. For once, her mouth opened and shut a few times like a fish out of water gulping air. It was fucking hysterical. If he thought he could get away with it, Snape would have tried to laugh. As it was, he wanted to save all his energy for pissing off everyone around him, so he frowned instead, trying to sound menacing. "Well?" he ground out. "Are you going to sit there gaping or tell me what the fuck is going on? Why can't I move my arms and legs? How long have I been in a coma? Where am I? What the hell is this place?" His ire grew with each question, barely able to rasp out the last bit before he quit speaking and glared at the shite-talking twit.

Infuriatingly, a slow smile drew dimples along the corners of her lips as she shook one maddening finger at him like he was a petulant child. "Noo naw, Mr. Snape, Miss Hermione warned me abit ye an' yer temper. I'll nae tolerate a mingin gob an' Ah am under strict orders nae tae divulge onie mair information until ye ur mair rested. Sae be a guid loon an' try an' rest. I'll lit ye hae some mair ice cheps in an hoor, but if ye continue tae rin yer gob in sic' a mingin manner, aam gonnae hae tae gie ye a sedatife tae calm yer nerves. Dae ye kin, Mr. Snape?"

Severus had no fucking clue what this woman was on about. The only words he caught in that flurry of garbled shite was ‘ice chips' and that she had no intention of answering any of his questions. He also surmised Hermione had told her something about him. He would have to speak with Miss Granger about that tonight when he was actually able to hold a conversation with an intelligible human being. With a huge, long-suffering sigh, he nodded at Miss Donnelly, who then seemed satisfied and went to sit down in the chair to resume reading her book.

He peered at the strange young girl for quite some time. She seemed to be about Hermione's age, obviously fully grown, but with an air of innocence about her as she had teasingly berated him with her own short-term authority. Every so often she looked up from her book and winked at him, which only served to brass him off even more. Refusing to indulge her in such juvenile nonsense, Professor Snape did the only thing in his power to do; he turned his head toward the window and closed his eyes, blissfully falling into slumber while listening to the crackle of the fire and the occasional turning of a page.