Compatibility
On a Whim
It is summer. Everyone loves summer. It's warm and free and filled with laughter. But sometimes, summer gets old. Friends go on vacation, and leave you behind. Parents start going off to their Country Club to "relax", and a certain sister takes the car you share with her nearly every day. People start actually wanting to go back to school, just for something to do. I, to challenge this, actually found something to do. I went looking for love. Love in a mail-in dating service.
Or owl-in really. That's what makes it so quick. If it were Muggle post, I'd be getting married at my funeral. (Sure would cut the costs.)
I expected a nice young boy to talk to. I expected an end to my summer of dull. I expected…well, I didn't expect what I got.
I got disaster.
...
It's summer! Everyone should be out being crazy, doing what he, or she, normally wouldn't do! I always said summer is the time that people should actually start acting like me. Well, how I normally always am. I might be a little too wild during the summer. Carpe Diem, seize the day, right?
So here I am, having the most of my summer. My friends and I waltz down to Muggle and Magical villages alike, looking for fun and girls. Except for one of us.
Two, actually. But at least poor Wormtail tried!
Anyway, my very best mate decides to mope around because of one specific girl. Nonsense, I say! Yet he won't listen. He says there's no one out there that could possibly resemble this one girl in her "sparkle, beauty, and fire."
Did you know he keeps a journal?
Just a fun fact there, but really, I beg to differ on this opinion. He hasn't met anyone like his dream girl because he hasn't even looked for anyone else.
So I, as his best friend, have to take matters into my own hands, right?
Right?
...
A mail-in dating service. Can you think of anything more horrible than that? Apparently, my best pal can't, because I'm sure he was trying to make my life a living hell.
He could've used manticores, or smashed my broomstick upside a wall.
Yet instead, he uses a mail-in dating service to find me a girl.
Maybe I don't want a girl.
Well, just not any other girl but her…
Anyway, my mate decides he knows what's best for me and somehow, as it always does with his plans, in the very end, and I mean the very end, I find out he really does know.
What's best for me, that is.
...
It was nearing August, the time when the heat swells up like some great big balloon, and decides to let you quiver under the shade of said balloon before bursting and causing your skin to go sticky and your legs to feel like lead.
Lily Evans knew what this felt like. After getting up early to avoid the heat, and walking to the store to pick up the breakfast her parents had so kindly left up to her, the balloon had bust, betraying all Lily's recent ideas that morning was the prettiest time of day.
At the edge of her driveway, a sprinkler was running, a little weak, but running all the same. Lily stood in its midst and felt a slight bit cooler before realizing her blueberry muffins were getting wet.
No one was home. No one was ever home! Her sister had taken the car and went out with some stupid boyfriend, the first one she had ever had. 'Oh, how Petunia doted one him,' Lily thought with a small giggle. Him, the great stupid buffoon.
Lily threw her bakery items on the table and collapsed in a chair, her head in her hands. She was bored. She heard a soft hooting.
A teeny owl was bouncing next to her. The Prophet had come! Lily happily paid the owl and sat ready for the newspaper to occupy her for a maximum ten minutes.
Seven minutes later, on the very back cover, Lily noticed an advertisement for Zonko's that took up nearly the entire page. And in the smallest print at the very bottom left corner, obviously the smallest size ad that could be bought, she spotted it.
Oh, if Lily only knew.
On a whim, Lily ripped it out and ran upstairs, wearing a broad smile. She still had three minutes left with the newspaper, but it seemed as if her summer might occupy her more than she could have imagined.
...x...
"Prongs, come take a look at this!" Sirius Black was lounging in his favorite chair in his best friend's house. Well, his house now too, he had to remember.
Propped against a pointy purple wizard's hat was Quintessential Quidditch (the only magazine for the fan of the game and alliteration). It was opened to the statistics of that year, with the prediction of England going against Chile in the world cup the following year at the top.
"I've already seenthat article Padfoot, I've read it about 13 times!" yelled James Potter, rather irritably, sauntering towards his friend. Suddenly his demeanor changing, James whispered, "But could you believe it if it were true? England hasn't played in the final for over a century and I'm sure Dad could get us the absolute best seats…" James trailed off, his eyes smiling with the grin in his face. "I don't want to jinx it though, but anyway, what do you think about Roduxas Hontoya, the new Chilean Chaser, if they were –"
"Calm down Prongsy! For once, I'm not talking about Quidditch!" Sirius was actually rarely talking about Quidditch, though James failed to notice this. "I was actually thumbing through this magazine to find a photo of the new captain of the Holyhead Harpies, I hear she was a model before she took up the sport, but instead I found this.
He was pointing at a small ad at the bottom of the page. The words were sparkling, as if compelling both of them closer.
Magical Mail-In Dating Service!
Take our free Compatibility Test, send in 5 sickles for the results, and we'll mail you the lucky matches that we find!
Guaranteed success!
"Wait…what does the star mean…?" Asked James, perplexed.
Sirius glanced down. "I was wondering that myself actually, I don't see anything else."
James rubbed his glasses with the corner of his robes and bent down until his nose was almost touching the magazine. "It says…in very small print, mind you, 'no guarantee of success.'"
Sirius laughed, the volume increasing as if someone was turning a button on him.
"So what do you think Prongs?"
"That is pretty funny," said James, chuckling himself. "As if anyone can actually find real love that way." James laughed again and started to turn the page.
"No! James! I meant…I thought we could use it for you!" Sirius said, the grin sliding off of his face at the look James was giving him.
"Sirius!" yelped James, clearly affronted. "You know real love doesn't come from silly set-ups like this! You have to meet someone, connect…see how they…sparkle." James had an odd look in his eyes.
"I don't mean love mate, I just thought it'd be fun, get you off your saggy butt!" Sirius retorted.
"My butt isn't saggy! Do you know how much I have to train to get it into shape like this? The roundness of the bottom is actually directly proportional to the ability to turn and the accuracy of the turn –"
"Prongs."
"Padfoot! Relationships aren't supposed to be fun!" shouted James, before catching himself and saying rather quietly, "I mean, they become fun, after the passion and the –"
"Fire?" Sirius finished.
"I was not going to say fire!"
"Sure you weren't."
"Look, that is silly. There is only one girl for me and I will never, ever try to woo another."
"Woo?"
"Shut up, Padfoot." said James, finally smiling again. "Hey, my mum's making treacle tart for dessert tonight, want to go snatch some? I bet we can enchant one of the house-elves to put on a show afterward. Maybe tap dance?"
"Maybe we can enchant them all!" Sirius agreed exuberantly. He started to follow James out of the bedroom but stopped, quietly tore the magazine ad out and pocketed it.
If anyone could, Sirius Black could guarantee success.