"Mrs. Longbottom... No, I'll call you Alice. Come on, come on." Audrey held her chin and looked ahead with her, as if they were chatting. "Why do you keep hiding here?"
"There are… there are bad guys."
She immediately shrank back and looked around in fear.
"No."
Audrey said, "The bad guys are all gone."
"…"
Mrs. Longbottom huddled in silence for a long while, then whispered, "I'm waiting for... the messenger."
Another messenger?
Audrey was very confused: If only Edward could come with me, it would be great, but unfortunately there is only a little bit of the Nightmare Candle left, so I kept it in my hand just in case.
"Well, do you remember Neville?"
She nodded quickly: "Remember! My son...Neville."
"Neville missed you."
"I... miss him, too."
"Then you can go out and meet him."
"I...I..." She mumbled, "I have to wait for the messenger."
Audrey frowned slightly, "Only a messenger can take you out?"
"No...I don't know."
She shook her head, then nodded hesitantly, "The messenger... can make me... no longer, no longer suffer."
Audrey used a few more soothing words on her: "But you're not in pain now."
Mrs. Longbottom was stunned for a moment, then murmured, "I... am not in pain? It seems... yes."
"So you don't need to wait for the messenger, right?" Audrey said in a gentle voice, "Come out with me, and you will see your son Neville and your husband."
"I…I…"
There was some excitement on her face.
Audrey stood up and held out her hand:
"Come on, Alice, get out of here with me."
"Don't be afraid. No one here can hurt you. You don't need a messenger to take you back. Follow me and you will see Neville."
Mrs. Longbottom hesitated and wanted to reach out her hand. Just as their fingers touched, the sound of footsteps came.
She immediately retracted her outstretched hand and looked in the direction of the footsteps.
Audrey also looked over vigilantly.
Walking out of the dark path was a gray-black animal that had never been seen before. It had a pair of long curved horns and a relatively protruding nose. Overall, it looked like a horned feline creature.
No, it is not accurate to call it a living being, it is a spirit.
Spirit.
There are naturally spirits in the Harry Potter world, such as the ghosts of Hogwarts, and even the current Voldemort can be said to be a spirit.
After the unknown spirit creature came out, it stared at Mrs. Longbottom for a while, then looked at Audrey for a moment, then turned around and walked back into the darkness, disappearing.
"I...I have to...wait for the messenger."
Mrs. Longbottom shrank back into herself again, staring into the darkness in a daze.
"Is that the messenger just now? What is it? Why do you call it a messenger?"
Audrey asked several questions in a row. She blinked blankly and said, "I... don't know."
"…"
Suddenly, Audrey felt a sharp pain in her brain, a sign of spiritual exhaustion. She quickly reached out and rubbed her temples, shocked: How could I be spiritually exhausted? Logically, this level of treatment should not cause spiritual exhaustion even if it is repeated seven or eight times in a row.
Could it be because of... that spiritual creature just now?
Puzzled and confused, Audrey closed her eyes and used psychological suggestion to distance herself from Mrs. Longbottom's spiritual world.
In the ward.
Audrey opened her eyes suddenly. She looked painful and her face turned pale.
Edward hurried forward to support her, "What's wrong?"
"It's okay, my spiritual energy is exhausted..."
"Spiritual exhaustion? That shouldn't be the case."
Edward turned a chair into a bed and helped her lie down. *, !More `hard^ sin. Faster,
After resting for about 20 minutes, Audrey's condition finally eased a lot. She sat up and said, "Just now when I entered Mrs. Longbottom's mind, a spiritual creature with curved horns and a protruding nose appeared, somewhat like a leopard."
"Spiritual creature?"
She then went on to recount the entire incident from beginning to end, "…and then I suddenly became spiritually exhausted."
Edward was surprised and said, "If the spiritual exhaustion is really caused by that spiritual creature, this may mean... it is not a fantasy of Mrs. Longbottom, but a real existence... and it invaded Mrs. Longbottom's spiritual world when you were treating her just now."
"But I... don't remember such a magical animal." Audrey was puzzled. "And even if there is such a magical animal, it can drain my spiritual power so quickly... It must be very powerful!"
"I don't have any impression either. Perhaps... I can ask Professor Dumbledore to ask Mr. Scamander..." Edward was suddenly startled when he said this.
"Having curved horns and a protruding nose, why does this description sound familiar to me?"
Edward's mind moved: "Oh, right, this description fits the Scimitar-Horned Snorkeller that Luna mentioned."
Luna saw the Scimitar-Horned Snorkeller on the day her mother died. This unknown creature seemed to be coming to take her mother away.
And it seemed that Mrs. Longbottom saw this spiritual creature only when she was experiencing torture and on the verge of death.
So it's about death?
Mrs. Longbottom called it a messenger. Does the meaning of "messenger" mean that it is guiding the dead?
Edward told Audrey this guess, and she pursed her lips and said puzzledly:
"But if that's the case, there's still one question that can't be explained. If it really invaded the spiritual world just now, then why did it come this time?"
After a pause, he said, "Is there a possibility that Mrs. Longbottom did not see it when she was dying, but saw the spirit creature in the spiritual world after she went crazy."
Edward thought about it and nodded in agreement, "I'll find a chance to confirm with Luna whether that thing is the Scimitar-horned Snorkeller she saw." - There was some unpleasantness with Luna's father last time, if he showed up abruptly... would he be kicked out again?
"Okay, I'll draw it for you when I get home tonight."
Audrey helped Edward off the bed. "Okay, I'm fine now. Now it's time to treat Mr. Longbottom."
"You just ran out of spiritual energy. Why don't you just forget about it today?"
She smiled sweetly: "Don't worry, the potion will be digested faster at times like this. I am doing this to play the role of a psychiatrist."
"Okay~ Don't force it."
Perhaps because Mr. Longbottom's treatment progress was relatively slow, he was still being tortured by the Death Eaters in his spiritual world.
All Audrey could do was to comfort him as much as possible, and use psychological suggestion to change his fear of Death Eaters little by little, and slowly relax his psychological defenses.
It was already noon when she left Mr. Longbottom's mental world.
The old woman knocked on the door and came in with a sumptuous lunch prepared:
"I didn't have the chance to let you taste my cooking skills the last few times, so you must not miss it today." She placed a ceramic pot on the table, "This is my best pot-braised lamb, and it tastes pretty good."
The two were indeed hungry at this moment, so they didn't bother to be polite with her and started eating the lamb with crispy toasted bread and mushroom soup.
The old lady looked at the two of them contentedly. "This was Frank and Alice's favorite dish. I learned it from a Russian friend. You know, no matter how good the cooking skills are, English food is hard to eat."
At this point she looked towards the bed, "It's a pity that after that, the two of them will never be together again... eh?"
The old lady was suddenly startled and looked straight at Mrs. Longbottom: "Alice, what's wrong with you?"
Mrs. Longbottom sat up at this time and stared blankly at the dining table, looking like she wanted to eat but didn't know how to express it.
The old lady was pleasantly surprised: "Do you...want to eat?"
She hesitated for a long time and nodded.
The old lady quickly scooped a small bowl with a spoon and walked over to feed Mrs. Longbottom, but she turned her head away and stretched out her hand to take the bowl and fork herself.
"Oh, Alice, I'd better let me feed you."
Audrey hurriedly said, "Madam, give her a try. This is a sign that she is beginning to take the initiative to contact the outside world."
"Okay, okay, okay." She was a little excited and handed the bowl and fork to Mrs. Longbottom carefully. She lost her grip several times and almost let them slip from her hands.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Longbottom finally held the bowl and fork steadily. She looked at the mutton in the bowl in confusion, then at the fork. After some thought, she held the fork with her backhand like a child and thrust it hard into a piece of mutton.
Then she took it out bit by bit, and immediately the sauce on the mutton spilled on her clothes. The old lady subconsciously wanted to help, but she restrained herself.
Mrs. Longbottom held the fork and was stunned for a while, then slowly put the mutton into her mouth and chewed it slowly.
"Oh, my God."
The old lady covered her mouth, a little at a loss: "Neville...If only Neville were here, he would definitely be very happy."
She looked at the two of them with gratitude, bowed and said, "Thank you, thank you!"
...
After lunch, the two stayed in St. Mungo's Hospital for another twenty minutes before saying goodbye and leaving.
The smile on Audrey's face had never disappeared since the beginning. This was really a very fulfilling thing for her, but she was a little worried after a while:
"If I can't cure them in the end, and let the old lady and Neville fall into despair after having hope, wouldn't that be too cruel?"
Edward patted her head and said with a smile: "Then you should continue to improve your sequence. I don't believe that when you are promoted to a demigod or even an angel, you can't even handle such a 'small matter'."
"Yes!"
Audrey suddenly realized.
"Okay, come with me for another shopping spree. After we're done, it's time to go to the Malfoys for the dinner."
"Okay~"