by twilightstargazer
Lily downloaded Tinder the night her sister got married.
It's not like- she was just drunk and lonely, okay? Which, she understands now is a pretty stupid reason, but she just watched her sister get married at twenty three, and excuse her for having a bit of an existential crisis just because she's twenty and hasn't had any type of fulfilling romantic relationship. It seemed like a good idea at the time even though she knows most people don't use Tinder for actual relationships, but like she said, she was drunk. Of course, she also tries to convince herself that she's just twenty; she doesn't even need to go out and find some sort of fulfilling romantic relationship because she's a strong, independent young woman who doesn't need a man to feel fulfilled in life.
(If anyone asks why she's arguing with herself over Tinder of all things, it's just because it's two in the morning and she's drunk, with mascara smudged around her eyes, struggling to unlock her phone because her fingers don't seem to work all of a sudden. Long story short, she's a mess.)
Still though, the whole scenario is pretty fucking stupid, and Mary and they don't stop taking the piss for almost two weeks.
In all honesty she doesn't really expect to actually use the app.
She does set up her profile- and by set up she just means adding whatever pictures she thinks she looks cute in, actual descriptions be damned- but that's about it.
Sometimes she might swipe through it when she's bored, but it's only because she's curious. She wants to see the kind of people the dating app thinks she'll be good with that's all.
No other reasons whatsoever.
It's been roughly two months since she's downloaded it, which is. Well, it's two months longer than she originally thought she would actually have it installed for, for one thing.
(Yes, she's a mess. She knows.)
Occasional swiping turns into regularly swiping- Mary makes her disapproval well known while Marlene sniggers in the background- and Lily would be lying if she said that she's never swiped right on anyone.
They all fell through though, and Lily's coming to the realisation that she's maybe a slight bit picky. Most of the people were... pretty normal and nice, but one guy did send a dick pic to which she tore him a new one about sending unauthorised nude pictures to unsuspecting girls before blocking and reporting him.
"You do realise that this wouldn't happen if you actually go outside and meet people, right?" says Mary, wrinkling her nose when Lily tells them about the dick pic sender. "Socialising, making a connection, maybe actually holding hands like us folk used to do in the olden day."
Marlene snorts. "Come of it, Mare. 'Holding hands?' Have we stepped back into the 1800s? Should I hide my ankles?"
"Look," says Lily, interrupting them both, "The way I see it, it's better I figure out who's going to send unsolicited dick pics now than going out there and 'making a connection,' only to have my heart broken by some prick who doesn't know what boundaries are. You don't want that to happen to me, right Mary?"
The other girl sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Say what you want, but let's not forget that I'm the only one here in an actual relationship," she reminds them while setting the table for dinner.
"Oh yes, Mary the relationship queen," Marlene rolls her eyes, handing out the cutlery, "Tell me, do you and Reg hold hands on a daily basis? Do you only do it at night under the covers?"
Mary throws a roll at her and Lily hides a grin in her soup when hits Marlene right on the nose. The other girl makes an undignified sound, but she still scoops it up and tears off a large hunk before unceremoniously shoving it in her mouth, much to Mary's chagrin.
"I'm just saying that you're bound to run into some creeps using it," Mary says stiffly.
"You're bound to run into creeps everywhere, at least with this you don't have to bother with kicking them in the nads to get them to leave you alone," Marlene counters, waving her spoon around as she makes her point. She then turns to Lily and grins, "After dinner I'll help you take some sexy ankle photos. Have those fellas work up a sweat. Maybe then you might get some handholding action."
Mary is definitely not impressed when Lily's laughter upsets her bowl, but even she can't hide the slight twitch of her lips.
Three months in she happens across a picture of James Potter.
Now, Lily doesn't actively keep up with sports- the only time she dedicates any sort of thought towards it is during World Cups or the Olympics. Other than that she just relies on Marlene for updates because the woman practically lives in the football section of the sports news- but even she knows who James Potter is.
(Even if he wasn't a football star she would know who he is; sole heir to Potter Industries and only son to two of the most well known philanthropists in bloody England. Combined with the fact that he's captain of his team, well, he's pretty fucking well known and Lily expects him to be nothing more than an arrogant toerag.)
She stares at the picture for a full minute because no bloody way could James Potter, male, twenty years, and just a few miles away, be on a list of suitable candidates for her to date as dictated by a computer code.
In the end she ends up tapping on his picture- obviously a candid one, with his head thrown back in laughter and clunky glasses slipping down his nose, all tan skin and bright eyes and fucking hell this is not happening- to view the rest of his profile. Just out of curiosity of course. Nothing else. She just wants to see how much effort someone decided to put into a fake James Potter Tinder profile.
(Meanwhile she scrambles around for her laptop and quickly types his name in the search bar, pulling up his Twitter and Instagram pages. It's just to check where they obviously ripped the photos from. That's all.)
Apparently whoever was behind this decided to put a lot of effort into creating their profile.
Unlike hers, he actually did bother to full it out with little trivia facts about himself and it's. Well, she doesn't expect him to be interested in the same kind of fantasy children's books as her or identify 'binge watching Friends on Netflix' as one of his hobbies, but to each their own. She can't find the profile photo on Instagram or Twitter, but she does find another one he has up with him and Sirius Black, and before she knows it, she has the profiles of all four Marauders (what kind of group name is Marauders? What kind of adults gave their friend group a name like Marauders? What. The. Fuck.) open in her browser.
Lily stares in acute horror for just a moment before quickly exiting out and slamming her laptop shut.
She unlocks her phone and skims through his profile again. It doesn't look like the typical scammer profile, too well thought out, a bit witty and even a couple puns which make her giggle (she promptly slaps a hand over her mouth at that because Lily Evans does not giggle over puns what is happening to her. Seriously.) It's probably just some guy with low self esteem or something, and he can't be that bad if he mentioned that he thinks Ross is douche. Besides, he doesn't sound like a conceited prat either.
And if it is a scammer, or a catfish, well then, major props to them. She's actually kind of impressed.
In the end, she swipes right on his profile and moves on, deciding that maybe she should take a break from Tinder considering she spent the last forty five minutes elbow deep in research to see if this guy really is who he says he is.
She's almost forgotten about the incident when, four days later, she wakes up to a match and message from one James Potter.
I bet you play football because you look
like a keeper.
Lily snorts; she can't help it. As far as come ons go, it's not the worst she's been faced with, but it's certainly not the best either. Still though, she can't help but be a little bit endeared as she types out her response, a stupid little grin playing around the corners of her mouth.
Does that line actually work?
(She adamantly refuses to let herself go down this road with this 'James Potter' of all people. Honestly, out of all the matches she's been faced with, it's this tosser- the one with the highest possibility of being fake- that she likes.)
(Has she already said that she's a mess?)
She drops her phone amongst her blankets and set out to get ready for the day, certainly not expecting him to reply as yet. After all, she took several hours to get back to him. Maybe he's already moved on to whoever else he's matched with.
For some reason the thought makes her stomach churn uneasily, and she slams the cabinet door a bit too hard because goddammit Evans.
Because of those totally inappropriate responses to thinking about a guy who's quite possibly fake and all she knows of him is his incredibly well put together Tinder profile, Lily refuses to check her phone for the next hour out of spite.
When she does though, she sees that she has two messages from Most Likely Not The Real James Potter.
I honestly don't know; I've never tried
it before.
How about you tell me?
She's grinning because he uses semicolons in texts while also coming off like a socially awkward dork. Lily has accepted the fact that she probably has a problem and if she gets axe murdered by this Most Likely Not The Real James Potter, Mary is going to come to her funeral and start off her 'Tinder is nowhere to find real relationships' speech with 'I told you so Evans,' before crying.
It doesn't stop her from replying though.
It doesn't. That was the shittiest pick up
line I've ever heard.
As soon as the message is sent, she sees those three little dots pop up and before she knows it, she's gotten herself in the most ridiculous conversation with Most Likely Not The Real James Potter.
Ouch.
You sure know how to wound a guy.
It's what I do for a living. Lambasting
the male ego since 1996.
Well, I've been told that my ego could
be knocked down a few pegs.
Is this you saying that you're going to
bombard me with shitty pick up lines
until I tell you one of them was actually
funny?
...maybe.
She spends the next hour and a half receiving some truly awful attempts at pick up lines and at one point she even messages him, 'Are you even trying anymore?' after he sends her some sort of Karl Marx based pick up line, only to receive an incomprehensible line of emojis in response.
Somehow they move past that and Lily spends the rest of her day lazing around her flat talking to this guy because, well, it's fun. They talked about shows and books- he's surprisingly well read, even giving her his opinion on a few that she's yet to crack open- and then when they've somehow ended up on their friends, Marlene bursts into her flat.
(Pity. He was just in the middle of telling her about a prank he pulled involving his best mate, his elderly neighbour's cat, and about four bags of jingle bells.)
Lily drops her phone guiltily and tries to school her face in a neutral expression. Not that that helps however considering she's slouched across the couch, lying on her phone without a book or the TV on.
Marlene hitches an eyebrow, and it's times like these she regrets giving her friends an extra set of keys.
"Alright there Lils?" she asks, a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth.
She can feel her skin begin to redden. "Yeah. Fine."
It's not the least bit convincing, and Marlene doesn't buy it for a second. Instead, she walks over and drops down on the couch next to Lily.
"Right," she says, drawing out the word. She kicks her feet up on the coffee table. "Who're you texting?"
"No one."
"Okay... Did you meet this 'no one,' on Tinder or?" she says, and when she grins, it's feral.
Lily groans, hiding her burning face with a pillow. "Shut up. He's- cool, but in a lame way."
Even through the cushions she can hear her snort. "Of course he is. That sounds just like your type."
"You're the worst, Marlene."
The other girl prods her sharply in the stomach, causing her to jack knife and screech, pillow flying across the room. "Ta, love," she smiles, eyes glinting. She twists so that she's now sitting cross legged and facing her. "So, do you want to come hang out with Mary and I at Rosmerta's this evening, or do you want to send steamy ankle pictures to your soon to be betrothed?"
Lily groans again, this time flopping over onto her stomach and hiding her face against the arm rest while she flips Marlene off over her shoulder.
She does go with them to the pub, because she's not yet at the point where she's going to blow off her friends to figure out what kind of game some prat on Tinder is playing, even if that prat is interesting to talk to.
(She does however send him a quick message though, because it's only polite, and so what if she grinned a bit at his, 'I might head out too, if only to get my mates to stop giving me crap for smiling at my phone too much.')
The pub is packed, as per usual, but they manage to elbow their way through the crowd and secure a cramped corner booth. Marlene disappears to get them drinks, and Mary is sitting with Lily when her phone goes off.
Why are pubs always this crowded?
Why can't people get drunk at home?
I like to get drunk at home. That way
less people know about whatever shit
I inevitably end up doing.
Mary isn't paying attention, too busy texting someone herself, so Lily takes the chance to quickly type out her response.
It's the allure of large groups and light
atmospheres that influences people to spend
more money than necessary in order to get
intoxicated.
And then, just because she wants to fuck with him for trying to use a Marxist based pick up line on her earlier, she adds:
Blame capitalism.
His response is quick.
Down with the bourgeoisie.
"What's so funny?" Mary asks, and Lily has to scramble for her phone to make sure it doesn't fall to floor.
Before she can respond, Marlene returns, unceremoniously dropping the tray with their drinks as well as a basket of chips in front of them. She grins at her, and Lily barely even has time to groan when she turns to Mary and says, "Lily's in love with a Tinder guy."
At any other time she would laugh at Mary's exasperated expression, but now she just shrinks back in her seat and prepares for the inevitable lecture.
It doesn't happen though, because Marlene swoops in and grabs her phone off the table before either of them can do anything. Lily's fairly certain that she squawks indignantly, but it's lost in the noise of the pub which for some reason seems to have gotten even louder during the few minutes they've been here.
"Who is this guy anyway? You never said," she says as she unlocks it and quickly finds the app. Lily can pinpoint the exact second her friend finds the chat, because Marlene looks up at her in total disbelief and hitches an eyebrow. "Really?"
She squirms in her seat while Mary leans forward to catch a glimpse. "Look I know it's stupid alright? I'm not going to fall for some prat who might be playing me."
Marlene snorts and continues scrolling through the messages. "I don't doubt you," she says, "But even if this a joke, poor boy is gone on you."
"What?" she scoffs, crossing her arms, "That's not true."
"It is most definitely true," Marys says, delicately taking a sip of her drink.
"Whose side are you on, Mary?" Lily asks, thoroughly put out, "You've said before that these kind of things don't work."
"And I still stand by that statement," she replies, even as she and Marlene continue to read through the chats, "But let's be real, Lils, this guy is already head over arse for you. It's cute. Even though he might not be James Potter."
This is when Lily leans over and plucks the phone out of their hands. "Of course it's not James Potter. I told you, I'm not stupid."
"Then why are you still talking to him if you're 100% sure it's not him?" counters Marlene, waggling her eyebrows, "Don't forget I was there when you admitted that he was cute after he ripped off his shirt when they won the finals last year."
"I was drunk," she grumbles, doing her best to ignore the heat in her cheeks, "And, well, I mean- his face is... symmetrical."
"His face is symmetrical?" Mary deadpans, "Really?"
"Shut up. He's still a scrawny beanpole though," she huffs before downing a sizeable gulp of her drink. "Look, I appreciate your concern, but I'm a big girl and I'm pretty positive that James Potter is not hitting on me."
"Actually I kind of was."
All three girls immediately turn around and Lily's jaw actually drops. He's taller than she thought he would have been, all tan skin and messy hair fighting to be seen under a beanie, hazel eyes glinting behind chunky glasses perched lopsidedly on his nose. Combined with the dark washed jeans and maroon jumper pushed up his forearms, he looks like a normal guy out for a drink with his friends and not a famous football star.
Of course, once Lily's brain finally catches on that no, she's not dreaming, and yes, James bloody Potter is standing in front of her confessing that he was as a matter of fact hitting on her, she has to go and blurt out, "Are you stalking me?"
She practically hears Marlene's facepalm across the table.
"Marlene," Mary says at once, grabbing her purse with one hand and standing up, "I'm going to the loo; come with me?"
She doesn't even give her a chance to reply, instead grabbing her by the wrist and all but dragging her away from the booth.
James for his part flushes, and his hand comes up to ruffle his hair before stopping awkwardly in midair when he realises that he has on a beanie. He jerks his chin to the now empty seat, "Can I?"
"Sure." She hopes her voice doesn't actually sound as high as think it does.
He folds himself across from her, fidgeting slightly and she has to bite back a smile. "I'm not stalking you," is what he begins with, and Lily snorts into her drink. "I was on my way to the bar when I heard my name and the next thing I see is you, the girl I've spent all day messaging, and I kind of went- brain dead for a minute maybe? I really don't remember who I ended up right at your table, but I do know that I wanted to talk to you so-"
"James," interjects Lily, and this time she can't help the smile that unfurls across her face, "You're rambling."
He reddens even further and drops his gaze to the scarred wooden table in front of them. It's, well, it's stupid cute, and now that Lily knows it's not some psychopath she's been talking to all this time, she has no shame in admitting that.
"Sorry," he says, looking up at her through his lashes, "I'm not really, ah, good with people I actually like."
She pretends that her heart doesn't skip a beat at that. "Actually like, hmm?" she asks slyly and hears him groan, swiping a hand across his face and knocking his glasses askew.
"You're worse than Sirius. He's been giving me shit all day for this. He's probably sitting over there mentally compiling a list of different ways to tell me that I'm pathetic."
"Sirius?" she starts, glancing around the pub because really, how many low key (or high key in James' case) could there possibly be present right now. "Sirius Black is here too?"
He waves his hand in the general direction and if Lily squints, she can just make out the leather clad of the model himself, sunglasses pushed up on his head and hair artfully dishevelled, sitting with whom she believes to be Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, the remainder of the Marauders. He sees her looking and quirks an eyebrow, to which Lily makes a face and turns back to James.
He shrugs helplessly. "We come here pretty often. Rosmerta's known us a good few years now. Plus nobody really looks too closely."
"I bet," she mutters, sipping her drink, before the rest of the words catch up to her. "Wait, you come here often? This is my usual Friday night spot."
"I know," he says before looking like he wants to punch himself in the face.
Lily raises a single perfectly manicured eyebrow. "You know?" she asks slowly.
James looks like he wants nothing more than for the floor to open and swallow him up. Instead, he swallows and actually pulls off the beanie so he could ruffle his hair. "I mean, I've seen you around a few times and maybe, kind of, wanted to make... a move?"
She stares at him for moment before throwing her head back and laughing, one of those honest to god ones that take root in your belly and leaves you gasping for breath while wiping tears of mirth from your eye. It takes her a good few minutes to collect herself and when she does, she fines James pouting at the table top, tracing the scars with his pinky.
Placing her hand atop his to still it, she bites her lip for a second before saying, "So instead you decided to make a move on Tinder even though it was a one in a million chance of us actually being a match."
He flashes her a wry smile. "Basically," he says, "I figured that this way I could actually sit down and plan out the conversation beforehand. Like I mentioned, I'm not good with people I actually like."
"No," she snorts, "You most definitely aren't. You're kind of pathetic, really."
"Thanks Evans."
"And you still sucked at picking me up on Tinder too," she continues, pretending not to hear him, "You would think that a world class footballer would know how to talk to girls."
James rolls his eyes, flipping his palm over to lace their fingers together. "I'm regretting hitting on you now. If you ever become my girlfriend, I'm not sure I could survive you and Sirius teaming up against me."
"You've yet to successfully hit on me though," she points out, ignoring the swoop in her stomach at the word girlfriend. He opens his mouth; surely to subject her to another one of his ridiculous pick up lines, but Lily holds up her hand to stop him.
She stands up, and ignores the confused look he sends her when she walks over to the bar. It takes her a few minutes along with some well placed jabs with her elbows, but she returns to the booth and slides a beer across for him.
"So," she says, unceremoniously dropping back into her seat and tossing her hair over her shoulder. She sends him a grin that has him fumbling with the metal cap. "Come here often?"
James laughs, and grins right back at her as she takes a sip of her own drink.
"Only with people I actually like," he promises, and the two of them sit there, grinning like loons for the rest of the night until it's time for closing.