Chapter Text
Lily yawns and checks the charge on her phone. Its at 80%, so she unplugs it from the wall and rolls over to the other side of her bed, scrolling through notifications as she does. A sixteen-line text from her mum about kitchen appliances that she can’t be bothered to read right now, twelve snapchats from Marlene, a text containing a row of love heart emojis from Alice, and at the bottom, a new Tinder match followed by a message. James, his name is, which just makes her think of the monarchy for some reason, but she opens up his profile. Its the bloke with the nice arms and the messy hair she’d swiped right for last night. She raises an eyebrow interestedly and flicks onto the message he’s sent.
‘Favourite book, movie and food. Go.’ it says, and she rolls her eyes a bit, but types out ‘jane eyre, the notebook, my housemates carbonara’ and waits. His reply is almost instant.
‘Wrong’ it says, and she frowns at her phone for a bit, before sending ‘what the fuck do u mean, ‘wrong’?’
‘I mean’ he sends, and she sighs, because of course he’s one of THOSE texters who sends his messages in fragments, as if you’re waiting on his every last wordor something. ‘I put my favourite book, movie and food in my bio. I was testing to see how much u paid attention.’
And then,
‘You failed :/’
Lily lets out an honest-to-God laugh at that, because surely no one can be that fucking conceited, like, in real life. Her thumb hovers over the unmatch button for a second, but then she switches back to his profile, and he really does have nice arms, so she just types out ‘you’re a massive prat and terminator is a shite movie, anyway’ and hits send instead.
*
James pouts at his phone.
‘S’matter with you?’ asks Sirius, and flops down beside him on his bed.
‘Nothing. Girl on Tinder just said Terminator is a shite movie.’ says James, and Sirius snorts. ‘Girl on Tinder knows what the fuck she’s talking about, mate.’ Then he leans back, stretches out and pulls out his own phone.
‘Didn’t know you were on Tinder.’ he says after a bit.
James shrugs. ‘Something to do, isn’t it?’ Sirius doesn’t reply for a bit, scrolling through something on his phone. Then he stands up, and yanks James with him by the arm.
‘C’mon its 11. Remus and Pete’ll be here soon-’
‘RIght, let me just reply-’
*
‘No YOU’RE shite.’
Lily screenshots the conversation so far, then screenshots one of James’s pictures in which he’s wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and his chest is unfairly muscled and his hair is pleasantly tousled and his glasses are just a tiny bit wonky, then sends them both to her whatsapp group chat, followed by ‘do you see my issue here?’
Within 10 minutes she’s gotten back two ‘unmatch him’s from Alice and Dorcas, one row of 100 emojis from Mary, and one ‘Suck his dick’ from Marlene, whom she ignores. She considers, then reopens the Tinder conversation.
‘Does telling girls they’re shite usually work for you?’
‘No, but my symmetrical face and charming personality does’
‘I am yet 2 see evidence of that last part…’
‘Come for a drink with me tmmrw night,let me show u?’
‘Hm. prove it first. say something nice’
‘You’re well fit?’
‘Not even close’
‘You seem funny and your eyes are a ridiculous shade of green and, though its not as good as terminator, the notebook IS a bloody good movie?’
‘…… fine, ur on.’
*
‘Prongs, are you even listening?’
‘Huh? Yeah, you fixed the bike-’
‘And then crashed it again, like, immediately.’ adds Remus, trying not to grin.
‘It isn’t funny,’ whines Sirius. ‘I’ve been working on it for weeks,’
‘Its a bit funny, mate.’ says Peter, and Sirius stares daggers at him, but James claps Sirius on the shoulder and diverts his attention.
‘I’ll help you work on it next week,’ he promises, and Sirius raises an eyebrow.
‘You haven’t stopped staring at your phone all night. Sure you wont be married to this Tinder bird by then? You two seem to be pretty fucking in love.’
James just rolls his eyes.
‘Chill out, mate, we’re currently ranking the Star Wars movies from best to worst. Don’t think marriage is on the cards just yet.’ Sirius looks at him darkly. ‘Thats how it always starts.’
‘Course it is. Wanna blow up some zombies?’ Sirius nods just as Peter whines, ‘But there’s only two controllers, and you guys always hog them-’
‘Yeah, ‘cause you and Moony have shit aim.’
‘Do not- well, I do a bit, but Moony doesn’t-’
James takes their bickering as an opportunity to shoot a quick message to Lily.
‘Going 2 spend some quality time w Sirius. Talk 2 you later?’
‘Sure, wtf is a Sirius, tho?’
‘My best mate + better half. Kind of a deal breaker’
‘Oh, well I’m sure he’s lovely.’
‘HA. See you tmrrw, Lily.’
‘Looking forward to it.’