"An English Werewolf In New York"


STANDARD DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm not making any galleons, sickles, or knuts from this (no dollars either). The poem that Amanda quotes (which is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty) was written by Emma Lazarus.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am indebted to my fellow fanfic authors Foxfeather and Emilizanne for their stories Second Chances and Trusting in Secrets, respectively. Until I read their stories, it never occurred to me that there might be uncertainty in the wizarding world about possible alternate methods of transmission for lycanthropy besides the known method, the bite of a fully transformed werewolf, or that Remus Lupin would choose to live a celibate life because of it.
This chapter is dedicated to the survivors, the victims, and the heroes of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York. I wanted to write something positive about that city for a change, and I hope I've succeeded.



Chapter 2


"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.
"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First, you will sit down at a little distance from me - like that - in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day..."
The next day, the little prince came back.

- From The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry


"Hello?" Amanda called, knocking on the door. "Remus, are you home?" There was no reply. I shouldn't have come this early, she thought. He's probably still in bed. The door suddenly opened, and there was Remus, dressed in a gray robe and holding a damp towel to his head with one hand.
"Good morning," he said cheerfully, rubbing his damp hair with the towel.
"Hi," Amanda said, embarrassed at having come at an inopportune time. "I just wanted, I mean, I can come back later, or - "
"Don't be silly. Come in," he said, opening the door wider and moving aside to admit her. As she passed him, she smelled shampoo, soap, and something else, a faint, oddly familiar scent that she couldn't identify. "Would you like some tea?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know…"
"Really, it's no trouble," he assured her. He picked up his wand and used it to tap a teakettle sitting on a potholder on his scroll-littered desk. The kettle immediately began to whistle, steam pouring out of its spout. That's amazing, she thought. He really IS a wizard. This is just unbelievable. "Right then," he was saying, "I've got Earl Gray - how does that sound?"
"Anything you have is fine," she told him. "Trust me, I'm not exactly what you'd call a tea connoisseur!" He nodded, smiling.
"All right, then." She watched him take some dried tea leaves out of a canister on his desk and toss them into the pot.
"You know," she continued, "With all the stuff going on last night, I guess it didn't really sink in that you're actually a…" Her voice trailed off as she realized that his manner had suddenly changed; he had stiffened as though anticipating a blow. "Um…" she tried to pick up her train of thought. "That you're a wizard." she finished, and saw him relax. I wonder what he thought I was going to say?
"Oh yes, that. Well, we generally try to keep ourselves hidden from the Muggles, but last night it seemed - "
"Wait a minute," she interrupted. "What's a Muggle?"
"You are," he replied. "You and everyone else who aren't wizards or witches."
"Regular people," she offered.
"If you like," he agreed, smiling again. "Look, I'm going to get dressed while the tea is brewing." He gestured towards a sofa, large and comfortable-looking. "Please, make yourself at home." He took the towel off his head and ran a hand through his damp hair, releasing more of that warm, strangely comforting scent that she knew she recognized but just couldn't place. "I'll be right back," he called, heading up the hall towards - unless she guessed wrong - his bedroom. It appeared that his apartment had the same layout as hers. He had the same large window looking out over the city, and though he had no entertainment center, he had the same built-in bookshelves. Instead of books, his shelves were packed with rolled-up scrolls stacked in neat piles. She longed to select one at random, unroll it and read its secrets, but she knew she would do no such thing unless invited. What little she already knew of Remus Lupin told her that he was a very private person, and winning his trust would be difficult enough without being caught in the act of snooping around among his possessions. However, there was one scroll that she could read without appearing overly nosy, and she walked over to examine it. It had been unrolled and taped to the wall above the telephone on his desk. Curious, she bent to read the instructions for operating a telephone written by someone named Harry. A PS from someone named Hermione was much longer than the original note, and it contained astonishingly detailed instructions for placing international phone calls from the United States. For some reason, these instructions included notes on Alexander Graham Bell, a detailed description of how telephones work, the history of AT&T and a comparison of the company to British Telecom, and the origin and purpose of American area codes. A bit anal are we, Hermione? Amanda thought, amused. By now, the tea had been brewing for a while, and she could smell it, warm and fragrant. She had to admit there was something cozy about the aroma. "Tea should be ready by now," Remus said, coming back into the living room. He saw that she'd been reading his telephone instructions, and his eyebrows went up but he did not comment. She was suddenly very glad that she had not looked at any of the scrolls on the shelves.
"It smells really good," Amanda said, indicating the teapot.
"I hope it tastes as good as it smells," he replied. "I'm afraid I may have left it too long." He pointed his wand at the kitchen, and she heard cupboards opening. Two mugs came flying in from the kitchen. Remus deftly caught them out of the air and set them on the desk. He looked over to see Amanda smiling and shaking her head. "What?" he asked, bemused.
"Nothing… I mean, wow. I can't get over this. Cups flying around and stuff… it's just incredible." He poured the tea and handed her a cup.
"Too warm?" he asked solicitously as she sipped the fragrant tea.
"No," she murmured. "It's fine."
"Good." There was an awkward silence.
"Actually," she began, "I came over to ask you if you wanted to have some breakfast." He was looking at her like she'd suddenly begun speaking in Japanese. However, she was committed now and there was nothing for it but to plunge bravely ahead. "There's a diner around the corner… it would be my treat. It's the least I can do after everything you did for me last night." He was silent for so long that she was certain he was going to refuse. Finally, he set his mug down on the desk.
"I'll just get my coat," he said.



Over fried egg and bacon sandwiches, Amanda told Remus about her tumultuous marriage to John and how she, like Remus, had come to New York to disappear and begin a new life.
"He didn't start out that way, you know. Abusive, I mean." Remus nodded, sipping his coffee. "I never would have married him if he'd been like that." Amanda had been working as a freelance graphic artist when she'd met John, who at the time had been at the height of his career as a quarterback for one of the best teams in the NFL. But soon after their wedding, he had injured his knee, destroying his career and sending him into a fit of depression. "He was so angry… just angry at the world. And I was always around. He began taking it out on me." To John's credit, he'd realized what was happening to him, and he'd taken up bodybuilding in an attempt to do something constructive with his life. "But as hard as he worked out, he never got big enough to compete professionally. He'd work out all day, like eight hours or more, and then he'd see a guy who was just totally ripped, you know, and he'd get depressed again. That's when he began taking steroids. He got huge, but his aggression level just soared, especially when his dick stopped working. He was irrational, blaming me for it. I kept trying to tell him it was the 'roids, but he just wouldn't listen." Remus, who had no idea what "totally ripped" meant (it sounded painful!) or what steroids were, simply nodded. He understood enough to get the basic idea. "On the bright side, I got a huge divorce settlement, because I had tons of witnesses to the abuse. It was constant, you know? I think I was keeping Dermablend in business all by myself!" She sipped her coffee. "I can laugh now, but it wasn't funny at the time. You saw how he was last night… just totally out of control." She smiled. "You handled him so well!"
"I have had more than a bit of experience with 'totally out of control'," Remus said wryly.
"Really?" she asked, curious.
"My specialty is Defense Against the Dark Arts," he explained.
"Wow… sounds dangerous! I'm intrigued - tell me more!" He laughed, and began telling her about boggarts, grindylows, banshees, zombies, and things that went "bump" in the night.
"I wouldn't be good at that stuff," she told him. "I'd be terrified! My hands would shake so badly that I wouldn't be able to get my wand pointed in the right direction!" To emphasize her point, she picked up her butter knife and pretended to zap random things around the diner by accident, all the while wearing a mock expression of abject terror. At one point she tried using her other hand to steady her shaking "wand" hand, with poor results. He laughed appreciatively at her impromptu performance.
"Oh, it's really not that bad," he replied, still chuckling. "Most of the time I'm too busy concentrating on getting the spell right to be very afraid!"
"You've never been really scared?" she asked. He thought for a moment.
"Only once," he finally said.
"What was it? That scared you, I mean?" He took a sip of his coffee.
"A werewolf." Much to his amazement, she laughed.
"Oh come on, Remus. There's no such thing as werewolves!"
"You don't know how much I wish that were true," he replied, suddenly sounding very sad. He looked down at his coffee cup and sighed deeply.
"OK, enough of this spooky talk," Amanda said briskly, unsure what had killed his perpetually cheerful mood but determined to do something about it nonetheless. "Suck down the rest of that coffee and let's get going." His eyebrows went up, but he did what he'd been told.
"And where are we going?" he asked, setting down the empty cup.
"How long have you been in New York?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know," he replied, shrugging. "A month or so."
"Uh huh. And have you been to the Statue of Liberty? The Empire State Building? FAO Schwartz? The Museum of Natural History?" He shook his head. "Well, then, THAT'S where we're going!"



Remus couldn't remember the last time he'd had so much fun. First, they took the ferry out to Liberty Island to see the Statue. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," Amanda quoted, leaning on the ferry's railing and looking up at the Statue. "The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Hey, that's you!" she said brightly, pointing at Remus.
"I suppose it is," he agreed, laughing.
They took the narrow spiral staircase all the way to the top of the Statue to peer out of her crown at the New York skyline across the way.
"Pretty cool, huh?" she asked.
"Very," he agreed.
Next, they returned to Manhattan. It was lunchtime by then, and Amanda found a hot dog stand and bought Remus his first Sabrett hot dog, complete with the special onions in sauce.
"I just want you to know that this looks absolutely disgusting," he told her, taking a bite. He chewed thoughtfully, swallowed, and then - "I'll have two more, please!" They both laughed as Amanda paid the vendor. Remus was certain he'd never laughed as much in his life as he did that day. Amanda had no knowledge of the wizarding world, and therefore was always coming up with comments that he found endlessly amusing.
"After this, we'll take a walk in the Park," she told him, finishing her hot dog. Remus glanced at the sky, which had turned an ominous gray.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asked. She frowned.
"Rain, rain, go away!" she chanted. "Hey, Remus, don't you know a spell to make it all nice and sunny again? Get out that magic wand of yours and show that sky who's boss!" she commanded, waving her arms wildly in all directions and making him laugh once again. At that moment, there was an enormous clap of thunder. Amanda squealed.
"Now see what you've done!" Remus said teasingly. She laughed.
"We're gonna have to run for it!" she told him, pointing to a coffee shop across the street as the rain began pelting down. Remus briefly considered using the spell that repelled water, but decided he'd better not do magic in the middle of a sidewalk crowded with Muggles. Instead, he pulled the collar of his long gray trench coat up over his head. He put his arm around Amanda, wrapping her in the coat as best he could, and waited for the traffic light to change. After what seemed an eternity of standing out in the pouring rain, they made it to the coffee shop, soaked to the bone and laughing. They stood under the coffee shop's awning, wringing water out of their clothes; Amanda squeezed water out of her hair and watched as Remus tried to do the same. His hair wasn't long enough, so he finally settled for shaking his head like a dog, sending her into fits of laugher as she was splattered with water. Again, Amanda smelled that familiar scent that she still could not identify. It was only later, as they sat inside sipping coffee and talking that Amanda placed that elusive, strangely comforting smell. When she was a child, her family had had a huge Old English sheepdog named Shep. Remus's clean, damp hair smelled exactly like Shep had after he'd been to the groomer.



After that day, Remus and Amanda began spending quite a bit of time together. He soon found that Amanda's magic was quite impressive; she could pick up his telephone and make a deliveryman with pizza or Chinese food appear at his door - amazing! She could turn a knob on a small box on her kitchen counter, and Muggle music would come pouring out - but where were the players, the singers?
Amanda introduced Remus to the many wonders of the Muggle world. When he expressed surprise that the people and objects in Muggle photographs remained still, she introduced him to television and movies. In her spare bedroom that she used for an office, there was a desk with an item that he took to be another television, though this one looked like it was made out of something that might be good to eat. One day, she'd turned on the translucent purple device and introduced him to the wonders of the Internet, where a person could get information on practically any conceivable subject. The next day, Remus and Amanda had gone to the computer store, and now he had an iMac of his own, a sleek, slate-gray machine that looked quite out of place on his desk among his scrolls and quills. After his acquisition of the computer, Amanda began bringing her re-writable CD ROMS and her Zip disks to his apartment, where they'd sit for hours in companionable silence, with him scrawling away on a scroll while she worked on art projects on his computer.
And Amanda made him laugh. She once appeared at his door dressed in a witch costume left over from some long ago Halloween party, carrying an empty measuring cup and asking to borrow some of eye of newt. Through his laughter he had told her that he was fresh out, and she had replied with a totally straight face that toe of frog would be fine too. And she had an endless supply of nicknames for him that she made up on the spur of the moment and subsequently employed at random depending upon her mood and the situation. Among her favorites were "RJ", "Wiz", "Magic Man", and "Speedball".
Soon, Remus found that his day seemed somehow incomplete if he hadn't seen Amanda at least once, even if only to knock on her door to say 'hi'. Gradually, he began to open up to her, telling her about his school days at Hogwarts and some of the adventures he'd had fighting the Dark Arts. He told her about his friends James and Lily Potter, and their son Harry who was famous in the wizarding world as The Boy Who Lived. He told her a bit about his short-lived career as a professor at his alma mater, omitting the part about his lycanthropy. He hadn't had a close friend since his days as a student at Hogwarts, and he was beginning to realize what he'd been missing. Making friends in the wizarding world simply hadn't been worth the pain of the inevitable rejection, and so he'd always kept to himself. But Amanda was different; she was a Muggle. She knew that he often felt poorly and that occasionally he became quite ill, but she would she never figure out his secret on her own. What Remus didn't realize was that she would soon draw her own conclusions about his illness and its cause that had nothing to do with lycanthropy or the werewolves that she still didn't truly believe existed.



Text of a letter to Remus Lupin delivered by Hedwig the owl:

Dear Professor Lupin,

I'm glad you made a friend in New York. She sounds like a lot of fun. Things here aren't so fun. Snape gave us all detention cause we were wearing those 'I LOVE NY' tee shirts you sent us under our robes. He said we were out of uniform. Then Ron was muttering that Snape's just mad cause he knows no one would bother keeping in touch with HIM if HE left and Snape heard him and gave us all EXTRA detention on Saturday afternoon just for that. Snape made us all study for four hours straight, except Hermione. He made her collect slime from stinkslugs. I guess he figured out that studying isn't a punishment for Hermione. That was a week ago and she still stinks! She smells like never mind she's reading this over my shoulder so I have to be nice.

Anyway, about your friend. I don't think you should worry about telling her your secret. She's a Muggle, right? Well I used to be a Muggle, and so did Hermione. We didn't grow up hearing horror stories about rampaging werewolves and I bet your friend didn't either. She probably wouldn't take it as bad as someone who was raised by wizards. Hermione says that I should tell you that your friend doesn't have the same precons preconciev preconceived notions about your problem that a witch would. Anyway, I'll wrap this up now and let Hermione add something.

Your Friend,
Harry Potter

PS This is from Hermione I've done some reading and there's one Potions Master in NY who can make the Wolfsbane Potion, but you'd better stay away from him because he's also a werewolf hunter in his spare time. There's no one in New Jersey or upstate New York. I'll keep looking.

Oh and send us a picture of your friend - is she very beautiful? Harry never remembers to ask the important questions!


"I wish you'd let me take you to the hospital," Amanda said worriedly. Remus, always pale and thin, had gotten quite a bit paler and thinner in the past few days. She stopped pacing the floor to look down at him. He was sitting on his sofa with a thick blanket around his shoulders, looking more unwell than ever. "You really don't look good." Remus smiled faintly.
"There's nothing a doctor could do for me, Amanda."
"Well, have you even been to one?" Remus shook his head. "Then how do you know?" she asked, exasperated.
"I know."
"Do you want me to make you some soup or something? Or how about if I use my Amazing Pizza Summoning Spell?" she asked, pointing at the telephone.
"Get some for yourself if you like," he told her. "I can't eat. It would only make me ill." He suddenly winced in pain. "Bones ache," he said, at her questioning look. He gave her a faint, rather unconvincing smile.
"Let me get you some Motrin or something"
"I don't have anything like that here," he told her.
"No aspirin?" He shook his head, looking past her out the window. The sun was beginning to set. My God, the time! He thought. I'd nearly lost track...
"Listen," he said suddenly, "I think I'm just going to go to bed." With effort, he stood, pulling the blanket more tightly around him. "I'll feel better after a good night's sleep."
"I don't want to leave you alone like this," she said.
"Well, you must," he told her briskly. He took her arm and practically dragged her to the door, glancing apprehensively over his shoulder out the window as the sun continued to set over New York. "Really, I've just got to get some sleep. I'll ring you first thing in the morning, all right?" She was quiet for a long moment, considering.
"All right," she agreed finally, much to Remus's relief. "But you'd better call me, or I swear to God I'll have the cops and the paramedics breaking down your door to make sure you're still alive." And she would, too, Remus thought, suddenly touched by her concern. He couldn't remember anyone ever being very concerned about his welfare; people were usually more concerned about the harm he might do to others than they were about how he felt.
"I'll ring you first thing when I wake up, I promise," he assured her. She shook her head, a dubious expression on her face.
"You take care of yourself, you hear me?"
"Yes ma'am," he agreed. She surprised him by leaning up to kiss him chastely on the cheek.
"Good night, Remus."
"Good night," he told her, shutting the door behind her as she left.
For a moment, he stood near the door, inhaling the lingering scent of her perfume and thinking about how wonderful it was to have found such a good friend. He put his fingers to the spot on his cheek where she'd kissed him, and they came away stained with red lipstick. He pressed them against his lips, closing his eyes and smelling the scent of the make-up, feeling its light greasiness on his own lips as if she'd kissed him there instead. He opened his eyes and jerked his head up. "No," he said out loud. "Remember what you are." Moving stiffly and slowly like a man twice his age, he went to his desk and picked up his wand. He went down the hall to his spare bedroom, which he always kept closed. The floor was hardwood, cold and bare. There was nothing in the room aside from a safe with a combination lock. He shut the door behind him, pointed his wand at the knob and muttered a locking spell under his breath. When he heard the satisfying 'click' of the lock's tumblers, he put his wand inside the safe and spun the knob to lock it. Werewolves, he had been glad to learn, could not open safes. Still wrapped in his blanket, he sank to the floor and stared out the window, waiting for the sun to finish setting and the full moon to rise, and for the madness to take him once again.

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 3