Chapter Fifty-One
Aurelia and Blaise hadn't wasted much time after Draco and Hermione's departure, they had sent out a few S.O.S's telling people that Luna and Neville were in danger at the Lovegood-Longbottom mansion and then they set out to Veneficas Venitias to find a safe place to apparate from.
They arrived at the village of Charmsford within half an hour of Draco and Hermione arriving at the mansion, but they had to run the rest of the way, and the driveway itself was over a mile long. So by the time they climbed the stairs to the entrance it had been over an hour.
They crept into the foyer nervously, the moon had moved into a position where it flooded in through the tall windows and within an instant Blaise noticed a pool of blood on the usually spotless flooring.
Aurelia screamed at the sight, her voice echoing unnervingly around the cavernous hall.
"Shush darling!" Blaise said calmly, "There is danger here. We must find Neville and Luna and quickly."
Aurelia buried her face in Blaise's chest, and tried to get her breath back, but as she looked up she saw a dark lump on the floor at the back of the room. She clasped her hand to her mouth to keep from screaming again and pointed to the shadowy pile.
Blaise moved over to Luna's prostrate form and Aurelia followed closely behind him. "It is Luna!" Blaise said.
"Oh no!" Aurelia gasped, "Is she... dead?"
"No, she is snoring!" Blaise said simply, "She is asleep."
"Oh," Aurelia said, puzzled, "then where did all that blood come from?"
Just then they heard Neville's voice groaning, "ohhhhhhhhh," he moaned, and Blaise and Luna ran to the source of the sound.
They found Neville in the parlour. Aurelia was very nearly sick at the sight of the bone protruding from his shin, he was bleeding profusely and looked very pale.
"I must try to fix him," Blaise said, "he is losing too much blood, without help he will die!"
With that Neville fainted dead away again.
All the colour drained from Aurelia's face as Blaise bent over Neville and took out his wand.
"Os Arctissimum," Blaise repeated several times, whilst waving his wand over Neville's fractured shin bone, and slowly but surely the bone began to sink back into the flesh until a grating sound told him that the bone was knitting back together. "Caro et cutis, emendare!" Blaise said with a flick of his wand and the skin and flesh of Neville's shin regrew over the newly fixed bone. "There," Blaise said turning back to Aurelia, "Now he will be fine, but it will be better if he sleeps for a while to restock his blood cells."
"Okay," Aurelia said, and then turning towards Neville she said, "somnus." and Neville, like his wife before him, began to snore.
"You were amazing Blaise!" Aurelia swooned, and Blaise bent down to kiss her but Aurelia opened her eyes at the last moment, and cried, "We forgot about Hermione and Draco!"
At that moment there was a knock at the door, the sound reverberated around the cold foyer and Aurelia jumped with a start. Blaise rushed to the door.
He found himself face to face with a very strange person. The man was femininely dressed in a red dress and he wore a feather headress, big wooden hoops hung from cords that he wore through holes in his ears and he wore row upon row of colourfully beaded necklaces.
"I am Tennenggong Apai, Manang Bali of the Iban Dayak people," the man said in a high-pitched oriental-sounding voice. Master and Mistress of house, summon me for house spirit. Evil is here!"
Aurelia and Blaise looked at each other with confused faces, they knew nothing about Luna's plan to have the Iban come and expell Bertram's malignant spirit.
"You had better come in." Aurelia said after a while. The shamen had barely stepped over the threshold when he began to shake, his body convulsed violently and his eyes rolled up until only the whites therein were visible and then suddenly he was still again.
His leathery brown face became grave and he spoke in a low voice, "There is dark, dangerous evil here righ' now! Where girl with dragon hair? She in terr'ble danger!"