The side entrance was much more modest. A tall, arched doorway with an intricately carved architrave was half-hidden by vines and creepers. Sirius pushed them aside and knocked.
A moment later, the door was opened by a tall woman in the long gray robes that seemed to be the uniform of Slytherins minions.
However, hers were much more tight-fitting, showing off an impressive hourglass figure. She was quite tall, nearly as tall as Sirius, and long, sheet-straight black hair fountained down around her, reaching past her waist to her knees. Her eyes were large and very dark, her lips blood-red, her teeth white and even. She smiled when she saw Lupin and Sirius. 'Well, hello there,' she purred. 'Did you just come by to say hello, or have the man-eating trolls finally found a restaurant that delivers?'
Sirius seemed to be busy putting his eyes back in, and had nothing to say. Lupin shouldered him aside. 'I?m Remus Lupin; I?m a werewolf,' he said. 'I?m answering the Call.'
She raised two delicate dark eyebrows curiously. 'Most of the werewolves arrived days ago,' she pointed out.
'I got sidetracked.'
'Sidetracked?'
'Sidetracked,' repeated Lupin firmly. 'Are you the Guardian here? Is there someone we should be speaking to?'
'You can speak to me. I?m on watch. My name is Raven.' There was a bright spark that might have been suspicion, or could have been something else, as she ran her gaze over Lupin, and turned to Sirius.
'And you are?'
'I?m — ' Sirius began.
'Hes a vampire,' said Lupin quickly. 'It took us a while to get here because we could, uh, only travel at night.'
She looked at Sirius with interest. 'You?re a vampire?'
'Hes called William the Bloody,' said Lupin, embroidering. 'Hes quite well-known for his viciousness and his, um…bloodthirstiness.'
''Both of you are Human-Born? Thats unusual. And a vampire and a werewolf travelling together…well, I suppose you could keep a lookout for crosses and stakes and he could protect you from silver.
Still, it seems impractical.' She leaned against the door jamb, inhaling with great effect. 'Does your vampire friend talk? Because I have to ask you both the Questions.'
'The Questions?' Sirius echoed, snapping to life.
'There are three. The first would be 'What manner of Dark creature are you?? but I guess you?ve already answered that. Then theres
'Have you come here to be cleansed??'
'Cleansed?' echoed Lupin, briefly thrown off.
'Your souls must be cleansed,' said Raven severely.
'Sure they must,' said Sirius. 'I?ve been thinking lately that I need a good soul-cleansing. I've been having impure thoughts like you wouldn't believe. Really lurid stuff. There was this one dream I had, where I was dancing with a bunch of house-elves in luminous tights
— '
'Your souls must be cleansed of humanity,' corrected Raven, staring at Sirius as if he?d come from another planet.
Lupin stepped in front of him. 'Vampire humor,' he said hastily.
'He had some bad blood in the Netherlands. Hes been a little off since then.'
She raised her eyebrows high. 'And are you willing to accept the Snake Lord as your master and acknowledge the superiority of pure wizarding blood?'
Lupin clamped a hand firmly on Sirius? wrist. 'We are,' he announced.
Without saying anything, she leaned back against the open door, creating enough space of them to pass, although not quite enough space for them to pass without brushing against her. Once they were inside, she shut the door behind them and picked up a small lantern which glowed with an intense blue light. 'Follow me,' she said, and started off down the hall.
'What is she?' Sirius whispered to Lupin as they followed the rather mesmerizing sway of Ravens hips down the hallway. 'A veela?
No…shes too dark.'
'I?d guess shes a banshee,' Lupin whispered back. 'And have I mentioned that when there are pretty girls around, you suck at undercover? Now shut up.'
Raven slowed down a little as they turned a corner, allowing them to catch up to her. Lupin glanced around with great interest. So this was the stronghold of Salazar Slytherin, one of the greatest Dark wizards who had ever lived, who had inspired so many imitators, like Grindelwald, Voldemort and Steve The Third, who wasn?t as successful at evil as the others, but had written some very famous self-help books. The walls were ancient stone that bore the marks of the tools used to hollow out a passageway, the ceilings beamed in dark and heavy wood. Everywhere there were serpents — not live snakes, but a clear reptilian motif: carved snakes writhed up and down the architraves, were mosaiced into the floor, adorned the gleaming bronze torch brackets. It was actually quite warm inside the castle — fires were lit in almost every room, flaring and fading as they passed, some of them large as bonfires. Warm enough for cold-blooded creatures, Lupin thought.
They turned another corner. Raven was looking at Sirius again.
'We?ll have to keep you away from the veelas,' she said, cheerfully.
'They?ll just eat you up. Not literally, of course. Well, not most of them.'
Sirius looked alarmed. 'Why me particularly?'
Raven poked him gently with her index finger. 'Come on. Have you looked in a mirror lately? Oh. Well, no, I guess you wouldn?t have, being a vampire and all. But they do like good-looking dark-haired men.'
