Chapter 14:  Plaques and Tangles

"The documentation is ready to go to St. Mungo's for clinical trials," said Hermione.  "There's a Doctor Cammarata there who's done a huge body of research on chronic diseases, and he's waiting to proceed."  Hermione had been working on a method of identifying chronic diseases in patients before they actually presented with the symptoms.  She had found a subtle chemical marker in the blood of people whose parents had been afflicted with heart disease.

Severus rolled up a parchment and tied it with a piece of black silk ribbon.  "I'm looking forward to meeting him," he said.

 "Then, please come with me Wednesday week." 

"I shall, thank you.  I've been trying to resolve once and for all the images that I saw when I tried the Doors of Perception, you know; when you first brought it to me."

"You mentioned the Pliocene Age.  I should go to the University of Edinburgh to research it."

Snape sat down at his desk and stretched out his legs.

'I'm no longer certain that what I saw was the Pliocene, or any landscape at all."

Hermione came over to him and put her hands on his shoulders.  "Can you describe it?"

"I'll try.  It was surely a jungle; there were twisting, tangled vines everywhere, but the trees – if they were trees at all – seemed to grow at odd angles.  I couldn't see the jungle floor, just these strange trees and the tangled vines.  Oh, and the plates."

"Plates?"

"Yes, they were wrapped around the ends of the trees."

"That sounds even odder.  Ends, on the trees?"

Snape rummaged around on his desk and found a writing-tablet.  "Here," he said.  "I'm no artist, but perhaps I can try to sketch what I mean."

He took quill in hand and began to draw, and a peculiar, alien scene took shape on the parchment.  Long, tubular "trees" with bulbous growths in the centre and branches that reached out towards the branches of other "trees;" odd "plates" overlying the ends of some of the branches and the central growths; tangles of vines everywhere, twisting around the questing tree branches, wrapped around the central growths.

Hermione shivered.  "I'd like to have Madam Pomfrey look at this," she stated.

Snape shook his head.  "Whatever it is, it's somewhere in my life, either past or future. There's nothing I can do about it.  I think it is related to my time as a Death Eater; it has a sense of menace to it."

"It does that," said Hermione." But if it's an illness, and we're forewarned, we can do something to stop it."

Snape grimaced.  He had seen the insides of enough hospitals and been poked, prodded and otherwise tormented by enough medical practitioners to last his entire life.  Yet, she was right :I'm more than twenty years her senior. How can I be so negligent that I should make her a widow too soon? I cannot bear that she should be alone and grieving.  "I had better keep myself in good health, " he said.

 Hermione saw the concern in his eyes.  "I would rather have twenty good years with you than forty alone or, worse, with someone who did not love me and whom I didn't love"

. "For you," he said, "I'll do it."

Poppy Pomfrey sat down at her desk and put her head in her hands.  The hospital wing was quiet; most of the patients were asleep for the night, and the staff had mostly gone home or to their quarters in the castle.

Brigit McDiarmaidh passed her door, and looked in.  She knocked lightly on the doorframe, and Poppy beckoned her in.

"Shut the door, Brigit," she said

."Och, Poppy, ye look terrible," said the druid.  "What ails ye?"

"It's not what ails me, Brigid," the mediwitch answered.  "I'm helpless to help him, nobody can help him.  Perhaps in forty years, there will be a cure."

Severus and Hermione had come up to her office, their faces serious.  They had explained Severus' experience with the Doors of Perception potion, and he showed her his sketch.

Poppy felt her heart stop.  I've seen this, in a Muggle medical journal.  It's horrible.  There's no cure.  She composed herself.

"This is not the landscape of some prehistoric time," she said.  "It's a drawing of the elements of the brain."

"Brain!" exclaimed Snape.  "I should have recognised the brain cells- those things I called 'trees,' they're neurons!"

"You didn't recognise them because of the stuff all over them," said Poppy. "There isn't much known about this condition, and I don't think it even has a name.  It was observed during autopsy of the brains of extremely aged Muggle subjects in a geriatric study. Those things -"

She pointed to the plates and the vines – "are called plaques and tangles."

"How aged?"

"Well over ninety years, which is nothing to wizards."

"If it's a Muggle condition, why did I see it? What has it to do with my extreme old age?"

Poppy drew a breath. "I'd say that somewhere in your family background there was a Muggle.  It's so with all of us.  That person may have lived to be very, very old, and died with this condition."

"What are the symptoms?" asked Hermione.

"I don't know – since the condition was discovered during autopsy, we don't know how the subjects fared when they were alive, except that, like most very old Muggles, they were enfeebled, their memories were impaired and they were unable to care for themselves."

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose.  "Well, I see no reason to worry," he stated. "My uncle Mortimer lived to be two hundred and fifty, and spent his last days singing nursery rhymes and playing with blocks.  The house-elves changed his nappies."

They thanked Madam Pomfrey and left the hospital wing.  Hermione put her arm around Severus' waist.

"When you are an old baby, I shall put a bib around your neck, feed you, and change your nappy," she said, "and take you for walkies in a pram."

Snape smirked.  "Will you nurse me?" he murmured in her ear, causing her to blush.

Hermione began to laugh, trying in vain to stifle her giggles.  "I can just see you gumming your porridge, and then choosing some poor sod for target practise with the raisins."

"Poppy, ye can't do anything for him," Brigit said.  "No-one can, not Cammarata at St Mungo's, nor the doctors at Edinburgh, not even the specialists at Mount Sinai in America.  Either he will get this disease, or he will not get it.  If he does he will be very, very old, and it will come to him after a very long life."

"And Hermione?" 

Brigit sat down on the chair next to Poppy's desk.  "She's just beginning," she said.  "Let her place her trust in the Mother, and do as she must.  "'Twill not be easy for her, but she is strong.  Through her, he is beloved of the Mother."

"Amen to that," countered Poppy, and she linked hands with the druid.

~*~

Severus and Hermione sat on a bench overlooking the herb garden, enjoying a few more minutes before they returned to their respective classrooms. 

"If becoming old and dotty is your worst fear for the future, Severus, we are fortunate," said Hermione. 

"Yes, it seems that the Doors of Perception augur no worse for me than returning to infancy in my old age.  If you'll put up with me, I'll try to behave. But, Hermione, I must admit that I have had fears that I would not be – erm, adequate."

"You are dotty!" Hermione exclaimed.  "How could you -you are everything I ever dreamed of!"  She was gratified to see a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

"I have had some extremely odd experiences lately," he told her. "It seems that I had fallen out of favour with the Mother, or rather, I had never been in her favour, and she decided that I should be given some lessons in how to please her daughters."

And he proceeded to tell her about his dreams.

They walked slowly back to the castle.  "Well," remarked Hermione, "I believe I owe Dame Angharad more than thanks for teaching me the runes.  It seems I owe Sister Brigit a debt of gratitude, in particular for giving your ears a good boxing as well as having you learn what it is that women feel. Now that is astonishing!"

"And you aren't – I mean, you aren't angry that I, erm, --"

"No!  It was a dream, Severus! I didn't think you'd be, well, inept, but I must admit I was a little concerned that you might be rather – rough." 

"And I was dreading having my ears boxed yet again.  Can you imagine how I felt when you mentioned pulling off my breeches with your teeth?"

Hermione whooped with laughter.  She sank down onto the grass, holding her stomach, until she lay, hiccupping, at his feet.

Snape eyed her with his familiar scorn.

"Have I entertained you sufficiently with my embarrassment?"


Hermione took his proffered hand and stood up next to him.  She looked up at him with those wide chocolate brown eyes that never failed to melt his forbidding stare.

"My dearest Severus, I had a mental picture of my trying to remove your breeches with my teeth, and it was your expression whilst I was trying to do it that devastated me.  It was the same look you give Longbottom when he's trying to make excuses for an exploded cauldron."

Snape sighed.  "I suppose I will have to develop a sense of humour, but please do not expect me to tell funny stories or appreciate lame jokes."

"You already have a sense of humour.  I think I bring it out in you."

Severus took her hand, raised it to his lips and kissed her fingers. "You bring many things out in me," he remarked.  "Because of you, I have thrown my usual caution to the winds and find myself embroiled in a passionate affair."

Hermione considered.  "Please don't think that you suddenly overwhelmed with a great burst of masculine sensuality, Severus.  We have fought and snapped at each other for   "Because of you, I have thrown my usual caution to the winds and find myself embroiled in a passionate affair."

Hermione considered.  "Please don't think that you suddenly overwhelmed with a great burst of masculine sensuality, Severus.  We have fought and snapped at each other for years, and if I had not had the feeling of trust that I could do battle with you and not lose your friendship, I could not have allowed myself to succumb to your persuasion.  Although—" she bit her lip – "I should not say persuasion.  Against your usual nature, sir, you were most kind and comforting to me when we were caught in that wrinkle in time."

"So that's what melted your frozen Gryffindor heart," Severus remarked.  "My body heat, indeed."

She laughed.  "No, not your heat, although it was considerable.  It was the argument we had, in bed, that night, that convinced me that you cared greatly for me, even if your way of expressing it was less than tactful."

Severus snorted.  "Indeed, the mistress of the tactless jibe accuses me of having no tact!  Might I remind you, if you please, that it was yourself  who…"  and they continued on their way to the castle, squabbling like two old friends.