Summary: A full moon and a bitch in heat.  Will Moony be the first of his friends to become a father?  MWPP at 16.

 

Disclaimer: Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs all belong to J.K. Rowling—as do Hogsmeade, Hogwarts, its students and staff.

 

Author’s Note: Aoife is a Gaelic name and the pronunciation is very close to Ava. 

Dedicated to Missy, the sweetest mutt a kid ever had.

 

 

The Litter

 

            “Mooony, wake up, Moony,” a soft voice called.

            Remus did not open his eyes.  There was a note of teasing in Sirius’s voice.  Whatever Sirius was dying to say, or to show, Remus wanted no part of it.  He had also been having a very, very pleasant dream, and he wasn’t thrilled with Sirius for cutting it short. 

            “C’mon, Remus, I can tell you’re awake.  We’ve only got another minute or two and then Pomfrey’s going to kick us out and send us to class.”

            Remus reluctantly opened his eyes.  All three of his friends sat on the hospital bed nearest his own.  Sirius was grinning as if he had pulled off a truly unique and memorable prank.  Peter was also grinning but trying to hide it by propping his chin on the heel of his hand and keeping his fist in front of his mouth.  James was staring at the floor while polishing his glasses with a handkerchief.  A smile seemed to tugging at the corners of his mouth as well.

            “What?”  His throat was sore, whether from the transformations themselves or from the screaming that accompanied the transformations, Remus wasn’t sure.  Either way, he had a good excuse to be terse.

              “Don’t be so grumpy, Remus,” Sirius said.  “You should be in a very good mood today.”

            “Why?”  “I just lived through having every inch of my body stretched, squeezed, or ripped apart, twice, so why should I be in good mood?”       

            “Uh, Remus?  How much do you remember about last night?” James asked as he put his glasses back on but continued to stare at the floor.

            “Obviously not enough.  What’d I do?”

            “Out!  Out!  I’ll not be responsible for any of you being late for class, and Remus needs his rest!”  Madam Pomfrey flapped her arms like a crazed goose as she hurried toward them.  Peter and James immediately grabbed their book bags and fled for the door, but Sirius delayed long enough to whisper in Remus’s ear.

            “Congratulations, Moony.  You’re not a virgin anymore.”

            Remus stared in shock as Sirius ran out of the room.  Just before he had woken up, he had been having a very strange dream: an overwhelming desire to mate, fighting with Padfoot, and wonderful sensations, hot, moist, tight friction, fur under his belly, teeth sinking into fur—mating.   It wasn’t unusual for Remus to have dreams in which he was the wolf—at this point in the moon’s cycle, it was unusual to have dreams in which he was human—and ever since he had reached puberty, he’d had dreams in which mating played a part.  The unusual part of this morning’s dream, and he only realized it now, was how vivid the sensations were.  Before, they had been shadows of what he was yet to experience.  Now, the sensations in his dream were memories of real experiences, recent experiences. 

            “Shit,” he swore under his breath.  “You weren’t enough of a freak before, Remus?  Now you’ve sunk to bestiality.”  His first time having any kind of sex, and neither he nor his partner had been human.  “Despite rumors to the contrary, I’m the only werewolf in the Forbidden Forest, so she wasn’t a werewolf.  Real wolves are extinct in Britain, so she wasn’t even a wolf.  A dog.  I mated with a dog, and my so-called friends are never going to let me forget it.”  He groaned and buried his face in his pillow.

            “What’s wrong, Remus?”  Madam Pomfrey’s hand was instantly on the back of his neck, checking his temperature as best she could with his forehead against the pillow.  “Do you need a pain-relief potion?”

            “I’m fine,” he said into the pillow.  He wasn’t feeling anything worse than the usual all-over pervasive ache that he always felt on the day after the full moon. 

            “At least let me check the wound on your neck and see if it’s healing properly.”  Remus pushed himself up to a sitting position on the bed and allowed Madam Pomfrey to remove the bandages from the side of his neck.  “I don’t know how on earth you managed to bite your own neck, but it seems to be healing just fine.  Let me put some more potion on it, and we’ll have it completely healed by morning.”  She pulled a bottle out of one of the many roomy pockets on her apron and dabbed a potion to speed healing onto the wound.  “And a fresh bandage, and we’re done.  Would you like a bit of lunch now?”

            “Yeah, I guess I’m hungry.”

            “I’ll have something sent up from the kitchen.”  She took the pillow from the neighboring bed and made it easier for Remus to sit up in bed and eat his lunch. 

As she bustled away to go contact the house-elves in the kitchen, Remus said a silent prayer of thanks that Madam Pomfrey never asked too many questions.  It was physically impossible for Remus to bite his own neck.  She knew it, but she didn’t ask.  Nor was this the first time he had such a wound.  Wounds from Padfoot’s teeth and Prong’s antlers were preferable to the alternative—his attacking a human.  “Padfoot probably tried to get me away from the dog and possibly her owner.  He wasn’t completely successful, obviously.  But I bet he had a great seat for the show.”  He groaned again.

 

Madam Pomfrey allowed Remus to leave the hospital wing just before dinner.  He was tempted to stay a few hours longer—Pomfrey wouldn’t mind—but the teasing was inevitable whenever he faced his friends again.  He found his friends already in the Great Hall and was very happy to see Lily and her friend Aoife sitting with James, Sirius, and Peter.  The teasing couldn’t commence until after dinner.  He slid into the empty space beside Aoife and across from Peter.

“Welcome back, Remus.”

“Are you feeling better, Remus?” Lily asked.

“Yeah, thanks.”  He wasn’t sure what excuses had been given for his absence this time, but it seemed like a safe reply.

Sirius leaned forward to look past Aoife at Remus.  “You’ll be happy to know that between the lot of us, we earned thirty-five points in Transfiguration this afternoon.”

“I’d be happier if I didn’t think you’ll probably lose twice that before the week is out.”

Lily laughed.  “And you’ll be an innocent bystander, I suppose?  I think Professor Artemisia and Professor Nilson are the only staff who haven’t learned to see through the ‘sweet innocent Remus’ act yet.”

“No, Remus isn’t innocent,” James said with a grin.

“Not anymore,” Sirius agreed.  Remus couldn’t see his face, but the amusement was clear in his voice.

Aoife noticed the bandage only partially hidden by the collar of Remus’s robe.  “What did you do to your neck, Remus?”

 “It’s nothing,” he said.  “Just a bit scratched up.”

“What did you two do last night?” she asked while looking between Remus and Sirius.  “You both have bandages in about the same place.”

“Just love bites,” Sirius replied.  James chuckled and Peter snorted, trying not to laugh.  Remus felt his cheeks burning.  Suddenly it was much more interesting to sculpt his mashed potatoes rather than eat them.

“Oh?  And who bestowed these bites on you?” she asked Sirius.  Although she and Sirius were not “dating” they had been tending in that direction of late.

“Remus.”  James and Peter burst into full laughter.  Aoife and Lily were not laughing.  Lily was sculpting her own potatoes, and Aoife was staring down at her hands.

“Great, Sirius, destroy your own love life while laughing at my bizarre behavior.”  Remus sighed.  “He’s kidding, Aoife.  I hurt him in a fight.  I did something stupid, and we got in a fight.  Look under his bandage if you don’t believe me.”

“Is that why you were in the hospital wing most of today?” Lily asked. 

Still unsure of what lies, if any, had been told to explain his absence, Remus glanced at James, saw a subtle nod, and nodded as well.  “Yeah, I got hurt too.”

Lily reached across the table and backhanded Sirius in the chest.  “Bully.  You’re bigger than Remus.”

“He won,” Sirius protested.  “Remus is a lot stronger than he looks.”

“But Remus is the one who ended up in hospital.”

“Well, Remus is the one who died last night,” Sirius said, “but it was only a little death.”  All three of Remus’s so-called friends laughed again.  Lily stared at Remus in surprise, and he felt his checks burning again. 

“Great, Lily knows French.  By tomorrow, every girl in Gryffindor will think I had sex with Sirius.  That’s almost as embarrassing as the truth.”

 

Remus was the first of the group to rise from the table after dinner.  He didn’t really enjoy sweets this close to the full moon, so he decided to make his escape when dessert was served.  He mumbled something about homework and headed out of the Great Hall as quickly as he could without running.

“Moony!  Wait up,” Peter called.  Remus had almost reached the foot of the marble staircase when Peter called to him.  Remus turned and waited for him.

“Passing up dessert, Peter?  That’s not like you.”

“Yeah well,” Peter patted his stomach, “it wouldn’t hurt.  Besides I feel like a fifth wheel with those guys paired off.  I’m sorry we were teasing you in front of the girls.  We should have waited until we were alone.”

Remus nodded to acknowledge the apology.  “My only consolation is that Sirius will suffer as much as I from the rumor he created.”  He lowered his voice as they climbed the stairs.  “So what happened exactly?  I can remember being in the forest with you guys and swimming in a stream, but after that my memories aren’t as clear.”

“Oh, I thought you’d remember,” Peter murmured quietly.  He seemed a bit overwhelmed by the responsibility of telling Remus about his actions.

“After Sirius jogged my memory in the infirmary, I remembered bits and pieces, but not details.  Did we end up in Hogsmeade?”

“Uh-huh,” Peter nodded.  “Well, on the outskirts.  Do you know that farm really close to the Forbidden Forest, the one with all the sheep and hippogriffs?”  It was Remus’s turn to nod.  “We were in the forest, and suddenly you bolted toward Hogsmeade.  We all thought, well James and I thought, that you had smelled some people.  James was after you in a flash, but with the low branches getting in the way, it was all he could do to keep you in sight.  I was holding on for dear life.”

“Sorry.  Jobberknoll feathers,” he said to the Fat Lady.  The common room was empty, so Peter continued his story as they passed through it and up the stairs to the dormitory.

“Not your fault.  Anyway, Padfoot was right on your heels.  He told us later that it wasn’t people you smelled, but the dog at that farm.  He said that she was in heat.”

Remus remembered the overwhelming desire to mate that he had felt.  A scent teased the edges of his memory.  He couldn’t quite remember the scent, but he knew that he’d recognize it if he ever smelled it again.  “I think that’s why I can’t remember clearly.  Instinct took over, the wolf took over, and the human part of my mind got buried.”

“She was penned up near the barn, and two male dogs were already there, fighting with each other.  When you arrived, one of them turned tail and ran.  The other tried to fight you, but you won.”

“That’s who I fought with?  I just assumed I fought with Padfoot.”  Remus sat down on James’s bed, the bed nearest to Peter’s.

 “You did.  We all stayed out of the way when you were fighting with the other dog, but after he was gone, you wanted to jump over the fence into the pen.  That’s when you got in a fight with Padfoot.  Padfoot and Prongs tried to stop you, but—”

“And then I—”

“Yeah.”

“This is so embarrassing.” Remus said as fell onto his stomach and buried his face on the pillow.

“It shouldn’t be.  You said yourself that it was the human part of your mind got buried, so it wasn’t really you.  The wolf mated with a dog, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Well said, Mr. Wormtail,” James said as he came into the room.  “But if you’re going to have a dream about your new girlfriend, Moony, I’d like you to get off my bed first.  Witnessing your sexual prowess once was quite enough.”

Remus shouted into the pillow.  “This is SO embarrassing!”

“Where’s Sirius?” Peter asked.

“He went to library to look up the gestation period for puppies.”

Remus had thought that the situation couldn’t get any worse. He had been wrong.  “Puppies.  No, it’s not possible.  I’m not really a wolf, so I couldn’t—could I?”  “Kill me, just kill me now.”

“And leave those poor puppies without a father?  We couldn’t do that,” James said.  The side of the bed sagged a bit as he sat beside Remus.  “Padfoot says that you can have first pick of the litter, of course, but he wants second.  I have dibs on the third puppy.  Hagrid will want one of course.”

“Me too,” Peter said.

“See, Moony.  Nothing to worry about.  We’ll make sure that all of your children have good homes.”

 

Sirius researched the situation very thoroughly.  He returned from the library not only with a dog handbook, which stated a gestation period of nine weeks, but with two of the more informative books about werewolves and the June 1973 issue of Transfiguration Today.  Remus was doing homework on his own bed when Sirius returned, so Sirius sat on the nearest bed, his own.  James and Peter came over to sit with them as well.

Remus listened with morbid curiosity as Sirius filled them in on what he had learned.  He opened No Longer Human: The Definitive Guide to Vampires and Werewolves and began to read from a page he had marked with a bookmark.  “‘Female werewolves appear to be sterile.  The transformation itself seems to cause miscarriages of their young.’  Then there are statistics and examples, including some stuff about a woman who was almost full term when she got bitten.  Her baby was born alive, but she seems to be the exception that proves the rule.”  Sirius ran his eyes over the page.  “Here it is.  ‘Male werewolves, on the other hand, are capable of siring children.  In the rare cases of male werewolves having a female human partner, children have been born of the unions.  Popular belief has it that the children will be born with the same curse which afflicts the father, and countless offspring have been put down at birth due to this belief.  Several countries require these mercy killings by law.’”

“That’s sick,” Peter said.

“‘However, after exhaustive research, this author was unable to find even one proven case of the child of a werewolf being born cursed.’  O.K., now this is the part that applies to your current situation.  ‘Folklore in some countries has long held that particularly vicious wolves, those who actively hunt people, were sired by werewolves in their wolf forms.  No scientific research has been done to prove or disprove this belief.’”

“So, that means ‘maybe’ Moony could father puppies,” James summarized.  Remus felt a bit nauseous.  The idea of having fathered a litter of puppies was bad enough—but vicious, man-eating puppies?  He began to chew his bottom lip.  James, sitting beside him, put a comforting arm around his shoulders.

“But here’s this,” Sirius said as he picked up Transfiguration Today.  “This article is actually about animagi, but a human transformed into an animal is a human transformed into an animal, so it might apply.”  Sirius opened to a bookmarked page, but then closed it again with his finger between the pages to mark his place.  “Apparently there was a German animagus in the eighteenth century named Felix Rathskeller.  His form was a cat.  Shortly after he became an animagus, a barn cat in his village went into heat, and he gave into temptation.  When she had her kittens, he wondered if any of them were his.”  Sirius opened the scholarly journal to the article.   “He wrote in his journal, ‘As the female in question had at least four or five suitors, there was no way to know.’  He observed the kittens for a couple of years, but they all seemed to be ordinary cats.  Then, a few years after that, Rathskeller began deliberately mating with cats.”

“Too bad he’s dead.  He would have been a great boyfriend for McGonagall,” Peter said with a chuckle.

“Help her relax a bit,” James agreed.

“Well, Rathskeller claimed that it was purely in the interest of scientific inquiry, to learn if animagi could sire animal offspring, but I think the old boy was just horny as hell.  He obtained female cats and kept them confined to his house so they couldn’t rendezvous with any other tomcats.  Several years, no kittens.  He concluded that animagi couldn’t father animal offspring.  But when his journal was made public ten years after his death, people pointed out that Rathskeller never married—”

“Big surprise,” James chuckled.

“—and didn’t father any human offspring either.”

“So he may have been sterile,” Remus said.

“Exactly.  The authors of this article,” Sirius gestured with the journal, “wondered the same thing.  One is a wizard, and the other is his Muggle brother, a surgeon.  They contacted most of the male animagi in three countries and got four volunteers.”

“They volunteered to—mate?” Peter asked.

Sirius shook his head.  “No, they had each one transform into his animal form—for privacy reasons, the article just says that all four were mammals—and obtained sperm samples.”

“How?” James asked.

“You don’t want to know; believe me.  Then they looked at the sperm under a microscope.  Human in every case.”

“Human sperm, animal eggs, no fertilization,” Remus said.

Sirius nodded again.  “I don’t see why werewolves would be any different.”  Remus sighed in relief, and James ruffled his hair affectionately.  “The authors theorize that it’s because it takes about three months for sperm to mature.  If an animagus wanted to sire animal offspring—”

“Why?” James asked incredulously.

“I don’t know—because my puppies would be adorable?”

“They’d shed, drool, and be impossible to housebreak,” Remus complained with a smile.  He felt much more relaxed now that they were discussing Padfoot’s theoretical puppies rather than his own probable ones.

“See if I let my puppies date your cubs,” Sirius said before sticking out his tongue at Remus.  “As I was saying, if an animagus wanted to father puppies—or—”

“We get it; go on,” Remus urged.

“He’d have to stay in his animal form for three months in order for the right type of sperm to develop properly.  They couldn’t test the theory because none of the volunteers would volunteer for that.”

“Could you imagine three months in animal form?” Peter asked.  “After one night, I’m dying to be human again.”

“So, if this applies to werewolves, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t,” James said, “werewolves can never father puppies—cubs—whatever—because they aren’t in wolf form long enough.”

“Right.”  Sirius gathered up the books and piled them on the bedside table between his bed and Remus’s.  Then he grinned at Remus.  “However, this might not apply to werewolves.  I, for one, am dying to see if the puppies bear a resemblance to their daddy.”

 

The next day, Remus found himself glancing repeatedly at the copy of Transfiguration Today while he tried to do his homework. Even if the article was not about werewolves, it had been the most reassuring of all the research Sirius had done.  He finally gave into temptation, closed his Potions textbook, and opened the Transfiguration periodical.  The article included several passages from the journal kept by Felix Rathskeller.  Remus was particularly interested in the one pertaining to Rathskeller’s first experience mating with a cat.

“And then I smelled the most intoxicating scent.  The scent had none of the beauty of a full-blown rose, nor any of the comfort of fresh baked bread, nor any of the promise of a glass of fragrant wine—but it was more than all of those.  The scent bypassed all thought and went directly to my most primal feline instincts.  When I say that it was intoxicating, I mean that in the truest sense of the word.  I lost all reason and restraint.  I did not think; I acted.  The scent was that of a female cat in heat.  The scent demanded that I mate with her.  I obeyed.  I look back now and regret my actions.  When I am a cat, my mind is both human and feline.  I see now that I allowed my human reason to subside.  I allowed my feline instincts to rule.  I am ashamed.”

“And just a few years later,” Remus thought with a smile, “he used that human reason of his to come up with an excuse to keep feline concubines around the house.” 

“Interesting reading, Moony?” Sirius said as he flopped onto his own bed and propped his head up on his hand.

“Yeah,” Remus murmured and closed the periodical. 

“Did you read that part about what a female in heat smelled like?”

Remus smiled but kept his eyes down.  “Do you read minds now, Padfoot?”

“No, but I thought you’d find that part interesting.  I mean, if he couldn’t resist, how could you?  Animagi retain a lot more human in their minds than werewolves.”

“You resisted.”

“But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t tempted.”

Remus looked up in surprise.  “Really?”

Sirius laughed.  “Of course, ‘really.’  The dog in me smelled a bitch in heat and wanted to; the human in me is a hormonally charged adolescent without a girlfriend—and wanted to.  If I’m completely honest, there are probably just two reasons I didn’t.  First, James and Peter would have been witnesses—and teased me much worse than we’re going to tease you.  Second, you made it quite clear that she was yours and I wasn’t allowed anywhere near her.”

“I’m sorry, or you’re welcome—whichever you prefer,” Remus said with a smile.  He felt better than he had since first learning of this escapade.  Sirius was probably overstating how “tempted” he was, but Remus trusted him that it wasn’t a complete lie.  And if Padfoot had found the idea of mating with the bitch tempting, even slightly, Remus wasn’t as much of a freak as he had feared.

“Are you done being depressed about this?” Sirius asked.

“I guess so.”

“Good, because if you’re depressed about it, it wouldn’t be fair to tease you about it, and I really want to start teasing you again.”

 

The “teasing” consisted of rumors being spread that Remus had a new girlfriend in Hogsmeade.  Sirius, James, and even Peter waxed lyrical on the merits of her silky black hair—she was a black and white border collie—her warm brown eyes, and her tempting perfume.  The last attribute seemed to be Sirius’s favorite, as it never failed to evoke a blush from Remus.  Remus countered by pointing out that Sirius had also been tempted by her perfume, but that she had preferred him to Sirius.

“Touché, M. Lupin.”

“What’s her name, Remus?” Lily asked.

“I have no idea,” he admitted. 

“Love from afar,” Aoife said a dreamy smile.  “How romantic.”

“No, I’d say the love got very close,” Sirius said with suggestive waggle of his eyebrows.  “Couldn’t get closer.”

            Remus did not care for the looks that Lily and Aoife gave him at that comment.  He liked even less the look that he was getting from McGonagall at the staff table.  He could imagine being summoned into her office to respond to the rumors she had overheard about his getting a girl pregnant.

 “O.K., this has gone far enough,” Remus declared.  “I do NOT have a girlfriend in Hogsmeade.  The last time we were there, we ran into a dog with black fur and brown eyes.  And despite the fact that dogs love Sirius, she preferred me to him.  He started calling her my girlfriend, and all of this has grown from that.”  He looked at each of his friends in turn, daring them to contradict his version of the story. 

“You left out the part where you beat me up,” Sirius said with a smile.  “Lily, call him a ‘bully’ and hit him for me.”

 

Remus’s friends stopped teasing him about the episode, and the rumors slowly faded away.  For the next three full moons, however, the animagi were especially vigilant in their efforts to keep Moony farther away from Hogsmeade. And although the event was rarely mentioned, it was not forgotten.  One cool but sunny March morning, all four teenagers ate a quick breakfast, put on their cloaks, and walked to Hogsmeade via the tunnel behind a mirror on the fourth floor.  Hagrid had confirmed that a litter of puppies had been born to Missy, the border collie belonging to Leland Browe, the hippogriff breeder.  Remus’s stomach was clenched in a knot.  He felt grateful that his friends weren’t teasing him this morning, but the silence surrounding them wasn’t much better.

“James, could you please prattle on endlessly about Quidditch or something?”

“O.K., Moony.  Anything for the new father.”

“James!”

James chuckled and threw an arm around Remus’s shoulders.  “Sorry.  Hey Peter, did you hear that the Tornadoes lured McGrath away from the Wanderers?”

“Did they really?  Why’d he go?  The Wanderers have a much better shot at the League Cup than the Tornadoes.”

“Well, he’s getting a bit long in the tooth to be a player, maybe five good years left, and I hear that he really wants to shift into coaching—”

Remus tuned out the rest of the conversation and just let the sounds of his friends’ voices wash over him.  All too soon, they were trudging up the slight hill toward the Browe family farm.  They found Mr. Browe and his daughter at a paddock near their house.  He was currying one of two hippogriffs in the paddock, while the young girl sat on the fence and offered the other hippogriff something small and furry.

“Eww,” Peter muttered as he watched the hippogriff use its beak and claws to pull apart the small rodent.

“Hello, boys,” Mr. Browe said.  “Come to see the hippogriffs?  Mind you don’t get too close.  Rabbit isn’t too fond of most strangers, especially while he’s eating.” 

“Rabbit?” Sirius asked.

“I named him,” the little girl said proudly.  “I was there when he hatched.”

“I bet he was cute when he hatched, wasn’t he?” James asked.  She nodded enthusiastically.  “Actually, we were hoping to see your new puppies,” he said to the girl.  He looked at her father.  “Hagrid told us that your border collie had a litter a few weeks ago.”

“That she did.  The five cutest little balls of fur you ever did see.  They won’t be ready to leave their mum for another five weeks, but if you boys are interested in puppies, I’ll be trying to find homes for three of them then.  Cordie, would you show these nice boys where Missy and her pups are?”

Cordie hopped down from the fence and headed toward the barn.  “She’s over here.  Missy didn’t want to whelp in the house.  Mum fixed up a nice box for her in the kitchen, but Missy wouldn’t have anything to do with it.  She picked a stall in the barn.”  Cordie led the way to one of stalls in the far corner of the barn and stepped over a board that kept the puppies confined.  Missy accepted the girl sitting on the straw amongst her young, but kept a wary eye on the four strangers clustered around the stall’s entrance.

“Wow,” James said quietly.  “They look just like their daddy.”

“The resemblance is uncanny,” Peter agreed.

“No denying paternity,” Remus said.  He knelt down and began to pet one of the small pure black puppies.  “So when are you going to hand out the cigars, Padfoot?”

 

 

Author’s Note:  I hope the “biology lesson” didn’t make the story too dry and pedantic.  I wanted to make it clear that, all teasing aside, the puppies couldn’t be Moony’s or Padfoot’s, and this was the reason I imagined.  I tried to keep the explanation as brief as possible and break it up with comments by the characters.  Did I put anyone to sleep, or did I pull it off?

Regarding Sirius in this story: I imagine that his practical joker side would have loved this opportunity to tease Remus, his protective side would have wanted to reassure Remus that (A) it wasn’t his fault, and (B) the puppies aren’t his, and his scholarly side (McGonagall tells us that James and Sirius were “exceptionally bright”) would have researched the situation in order to give Remus some answers.  Does he seem in character to you?

—Written May 2003