AN: I posted this book to Inkitt for a contest. I would absolutely adore if you guys would head over there and vote for me. Or for someone else. There's another really good Marauder's one in the contest called Midnight Marauder. You really should check it out. The link is: [slash] fandom. As always, I love you all and here's your reward for being awesome!


The week seemed to drag on and on. It was close enough to summer vacation that people were starting to get restless. No one wanted to pay attention in class, not even some of the teachers. Most of class time was spent lazily reviewing for our upcoming OWLs, which just happened to be right after the last Hogsmeade weekend of the year. Several students had already decided that they would be staying in the castle instead.

"You sure you want to go to Hogsmeade this weekend? We could all use the extra study days." Remus whispered softly as we poured over our textbooks on the grounds.

"I'm not letting you get out of this, Rem." I hissed back, keeping my voice low. We hadn't told the boys of our weekend plans yet, and they were sprawled out around us pretending to study, other than Peter who was studying like the tests were tomorrow. "It'll be my only chance to get you out on a date."

"Yeah, Yeah. Just remember, it's only one date." Remus frowned worriedly. "It's too dangerous."

"Yeah, yeah. You're such a monster. Perhaps you'll turn into a werewolf in the middle of the day and start chewing on my face." I rolled my eyes. "Remus, I don't beleive all that dangerous crap. You're about as dangerous as my brother's cat."

"Dez, this is serious." Remus hissed.

"Remus, you aren't a monster." I insisted softly. We'd been having this same argument all week. "I turn into a man-eating beast for a whole week each month, and you still hang out with me. I think I can handle you turning into one for one damn night."

"It's not-"

"It's not the same. I know, Remus." I groaned. "Give it a rest already. I. Am. Not. Going. Anywhere."

The two of us fell silent as we returned to our studies.

After hours of studying and taking turns helping each other out, the five of us headed back inside. It was Sirius's turn to walk me to my dorm, because evidently I couldn't be trusted without supervision. When we finally got there I gave him a tired wave and went to enter my dorm.

"Dez, wait a sec, would ya?" Sirius grinned, leaning on my shoulder.

"What?" I yawned.

"What's going on with you and Moony?" He smiled brighter. "And don't bother saying nothing, because we've all noticed and Wormtail and Prongs have probably already ambushed him too."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Padfoot." I sighed, leaning against the door to my dorm.

"The secret smiles when you think we aren't watching. The looks. The bickering like a married couple." Sirius knew he had me trapped. "What on earth happened last week when you guys stayed out all night?"

"I asked him out." I shrugged. "He told me that he was a dangerous werewolf. We argued. We talked. End of story."

"He used THAT as an excuse? But we were making so much progress!" Sirius groaned. " He likes you, you like him. What's the freaking problem?"

"He thinks I'm too good for him, just because he's a rotten wolf." I rolled my eyes. "He won't take 'I don't care as an answer. Now leave it be. It's a bit of a sore spot."

"You're just going to let him leave it there?" Sirius frowned, looking rather disappointed with me.

"Of course not, Black." I yawned again. "Why do you think we've been arguing so much? Now go to bed and leave my Dashuri alone."

"What's a dashery?" Sirius asked softly.

"It's dashuri. It's... I've never used... or even heard that word before..." I frowned. "I have no clue."

Sirius chuckled. "Making up your own language, huh? You should probably get to bed, Ghost."

I chuckled lightly and turned to the dragon portrait guarding my door. "The seven rules of the Dragon's Ghost" I whispered. The Dragon roared and blew ice at me, but the door swung open easily.

"Night, Padfoot." I smiled as I slipped inside. I went straight to my desk and pulled out the drawing from earlier this week. A snow tiger with one pure white paw and a marking on it's neck that looked suspiciously like part of a tribal tattoo stared back from the page of snow and trees. The whole thing felt eerily familiar, but I knew I'd never seen anything like it. A few greys, a hint of brown, and bright blue later, it hit me. This was me. My animagus was a white tiger. This is what my hallucinations had been trying to tell me.

I quickly slid the page into a protective sheet so it wouldn't get ruined and closed my eyes. Perhaps I could do this for all of us. I thought of Sirius, of Padfoot and his mournful howl. I brought up the memories of how the visions had felt and thought of a big, shaggy, black canine.

I stopped thinking and just let myself draw as soon as the inspiration hit me. I stayed up for hours, letting my muggle art tools do the work for me. My mind was black, long after I set the page aside and finally went to bed. I would show Padfoot in the morning and see if it worked.

The next morning I wandered down to breakfast with my bag over my shoulder and my sketchpad in my hand. The boys were all there, whispering amongst themselves. I smiled and walked up behind Remus to scare him.

"And you're sure the exact word she said was Dashuri?" Remus hissed, looking frightened. I froze in my tracks and listened. Guilt crept up my spine from eavesdropping on my friends, but it didn't seem like they planned on waiting for me.

"Yes. She said it twice, in fact." Sirius sighed. "Why do you know what it means? Because she didn't even know."

"Yeah, I know what it means." Remus sighed. "You've read all about werewolves, yeah? How they mate for life and everything?"

"Of course. What's that got to do with Desari's made up word?" Sirius groaned, stuffing several pieces of bacon into his mouth.

"When a werewolf choses his mate, he called her Zemer. It means heart in Albanian. When the mate accepts, she responds with Dashuri, which means love. Basically, those two words form a promise between wolf and mate. A promise to have one heart and one love." Remus keened.

"So Dez is your mate? But you've never used the word Zemer before." Sirius frowned.

"I did though." Remus groaned. "I called her my Zemer the other night, when she was upset about the whole resorting thing. I named her my mate, and now she named me hers."

"So? You like her. She likes you. I don't see a problem." Sirius shrugged. "Isn't the whole werewolf and mate thing destiny anyways? Your mate is pre-decided by fate or whatever? At least you actually LIKE your mate."

"Yeah, it's fate, but naming each other makes it much more real." Remus frowned. "Okay, think of it this way, naming your mate is like... buying a girl a promise ring. It's a promise for something bigger. Then there's marking your mate. Usually, werewolves mark their mate by turning them, but some werewolves chose other ways, like a tattoo or something. Marking is the werewolf version of an engagement. And then there's the bonding ceremony..."

"Which is a werewolf wedding." Sirius smiled.

"Basically." Remus shrugged. "Anyways, the point of it is, naming Dez as my mate was a horrible thing for me to do. Especially since I didn't even explain very well. And now that she named me back, there's this like... bond between us. And it'll grow stronger all the time. If we hadn't named each other, we could just walk away from each other and no problem. Now, there's this magic that will link us forever. We could still walk away of course, but it would hurt... like a lot. And that's a very scary thing when you're fifteen."

"Yeah, but you like each other." Sirius shrugged. "Just talk to her about it."

"Sirius, she thinks marriage sounds too permanent." Remus growled. "If marriage is too much commitment, what do you think she'll say about a magical bond that she LITERALLY can't get out of?"

I couldn't just stand there anymore. I purposely tripped over another kid walking by and joined the table, just in time for everyone to go eerily quiet. "Morning boys." I grinned.

I piled my plate with food and pretended I hadn't heard any of their conversation. Remus would share when he was ready. I tossed my sketchbook to Sirius as I started to eat.

Sirius eyed me warily. "Is this some kind of trap, Dez?"

"Just turn to the last page." I snapped through a mouthful of sausage.

When Sirius finally got to the right page, (he'd stopped several times to admire a different drawing) he bit his lip as he examined it. I could see the image clearly in my mind. A big, black, dog with matted black hair and silver eyes growling at the viewer. The dog appeared far too skinny, like it had been eating nothing but scraps for years. The bed it was laying on was dust covered and the bedding torn. The room around it was trashed, destroyed, and also covered in a thick layer of dust. You could see paw prints in the carpet from where the mangy mutt of a dog had walked on it's way to the bed.

"Dez, it's as if you plucked the image straight from my head... well, plucked it from my head and cleared it up... a lot." Sirius chuckled. "Beautiful work."

I nodded and continued to devour my breakfast. James leaned over Sirius's shoulder to get a good look at the page. "Bloody brilliant." He grinned. Sirius turned the page, and I saw the image of the tiger, reflected off his dark pupils. "Is this one you?"

"Yep. I'll get to every one else later, but I thought it looked pretty freaking good." I yawned softly and pushed my plate away.

The boys passed around my sketchbook, Peter gushing about how talented I was and Remus just giving me a proud smile. "Where'd you get the idea of Sirius as a dog? I mean it suits him well, but did you have to make him so mangey?"

I grinned. "You should see his patronus. He can only keep it up for like a second, but it looks JUST like this."

The other three readily agreed with my lie and we set off for classes. We all spent our classes studying, and helping each other study. Except for Defense Against the Dark Arts, we weren't quite done with our last chapter in that class. "Sorry kids, I thought I'd planned better." Professor Jones apologized over and over. "You'll just have to review on you're own."

And the five of us did spend the hours before dinner reviewing. By the time we'd all eaten our fill, none of us could stand the thought of even one more page. Sirius, James, and Peter took to the skies to blow off their extra energy. Remus settled into the sand by the lake to bask in the late spring sun. And I pulled out my sketch pad and let my pen glide. This time around, the details were bigger, closer to the page. I didn't need to enlarge the page at all to finish my drawing of Peter. When I was finally done, I looked up at the darkening sky with surprize. All four of the boys were on the ground around me now. Sirius was even asleep in the grass nearby.

"Do you have to sit so close?" I groaned, standing and stretching my stiff muscles.

"Dude, you are alive!" James yelled.

"Yeah! You haven't responded to anything we said or did for an hour!" Peter echoed James's surprize.

Remus chuckled. "You get so into your work sometimes. Even i would have responded if Sirius had set my robes on fire."

"He set my robes on fire?" I gasped, glancing down to check out the damage.

"I already fixed it, don't worry." Remus laughed. "But you really have been super out of it."

"Excellent drawing though." James grinned. "I think I can even see a drop of sweat on Pete's whiskers."

I glanced down at the page. There was indeed a drop of seat on one whisker of the ugly brown rat. There was also several patches of fur missing and a silver paw that seemed to be made of some shiney metal. The background of the picture was a mass of red, too close to the rat to tell for sure, but I thought it might be a cushion from the Gryffindor common room.

I yawned sleepily. "Yeah. I think I did alright." I shrugged.

"I love how you made it so detailed, even though it's only from a patronus." Remus grinned.

I smiled softly at him. "Yeah, it's great right?"

I waited for the boys to get to their feet. The five of us walked back to the castle in sleepy silence. Sirius leaned on Remus to support his half-asleep frame and I managed to convince everyone that I didn't need an escort to my own room