Charlie frowns at the caller ID. His youngest brother's girlfriend generally doesn't call him. She'll send him an odd text here or there wishing him a happy birthday or holidays, but nothing too frequent.

"Hello?"

"Good, yes, Charlie. Would you happen to have plans for this weekend?" she asks in lieu of a greeting. "Well, particularly Saturday night."

"I was planning on swinging by Mum and Dad's since it's been a while. Why? What's wrong?" he inquires, turning down the volume of his tv.

He can hear her inhale deeply from the other end of the phone. He can picture her tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she says, "There's this event being hosted by pro-LGBTQA charities on Saturday. I've already bought tickets to it, planning to go with your sister, but she's got called away. Ron's is doing the night shift. I just don't want to go by myself, but I don't want to waste the ticket. I was—"

"I'll go," he interjects, cutting off her ramble.

"Really?" she says brightly. "Thank you so much."

"Of course," Charlie says. "It's showing support for Ginny. What is it exactly?"

He listens as Hermione explains the event. Pretending to be a zombie for five kilometers doesn't sound like something he'd chose to do himself; at best, it could be fun, and at worst...well, it's supporting his sister's bisexuality so he'd do it anyways.

He hangs up with "I promise that I'll drop by your place early." Charlie has three days to look into what he should expect come Saturday.

Charlie arrives to his brother's flat in the early afternoon, a duffle bag of clean clothes in hand. His knock on the door is answered by Ron.

"Glad you could go with her," Ron says. He's fiddling with the belt of his police uniform. "I couldn't get anyone to cover my shift since Ginny got called away so suddenly."

"It's not a problem," he assures his little brother. "Besides, it sounds that it'll be quite an experience."

Hermione takes this moment to enter the living room. She looks death warmed over her; she's used makeup to make her face appear sunken in. It reminds him of the pictures he's seen from what famine causes. The counterbalance the greyed makeup, there's fake blood oh the side of her hair. That's surely going to be a pain to get out. He's extremely impressed with her makeup skills.

Ron looks at her. Her clothing is holey, splattered with fake blood, and covered in stains. "All that blood looks good on you. It really brings out your eyes."

She gives him an unimpressed look as she says, deadpanned, "Consider me charmed."

"I would give you a kiss goodbye, but I don't want to mess up all that," he says, gesturing to her. "I'll see you when I get home. Love you!"

Hermione calls the sentiment back as the door closes. "Now we get you looking like a zombie."

Charlie's done many things for his sister—had tea parties, snuck her treats when their mum wasn't looking, lied for her—but he's somehow managed to escape being her makeup canvas; their father, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. Charlie supposes that this is sweet vengeance for every time he laughed when Ginny practiced on their father.

The makeup feels weird against his skin. He's already looking forward to a bath tonight. He resists the urge to rub at the makeup, knowing that Hermione wouldn't like him ruining her progress.

It's a while but finally, Hermione stands back and declares herself finished. Charlie looks just as zombified as she does. It's ridiculously impressive.

"Alright, it's nearly time. I figured we'll catch a cab downtown. Surely beats London's parking," Hermione says.

Charlie makes a noise of agreement as she pockets her phone and grabs her keys. He follows her lead, and then they head out.

There's a lot more people here than Charlie was expecting. He blinks at the size of the crowd. It looks like a conquest or a war has come down upon the city of London. Some of the people are already in character, looking around listlessly as all of the participants get signed in.

It looks like a scene from a video game his friends would play. The sun is sinking below the horizon when their attention is called for. A man stands on the table as he informs the crowd of the rules and the expectations.

They've got five kilometers of downtown London partitioned off for their event. For each person who completes the even, money would go to the charities that support LGBTQA. They blow a whistle and the event starts.

It's not a long distance—Charlie's used to running more. He constantly has to remind himself to be desultory. The people start groaning as they move. They really pull off a realistic zombie mob, he can't help but think.

The moon continues to rise in the sky as they make their way through the street. There has been quite a few people who found themselves too tired to finish. Hermione has kept a steady, desultory pace with him. She's groaning and moving stiffly.

Charlie has to admit, he's enjoying himself more than he thought he would.

Then there's a blond man who takes one look at the crowd and screams. Charlie thinks briefly that the man is going to deny screaming in fear later, but he's too hypnotized by the blond's beauty to think of anything else.

He looks otherworldly, even as he trips over his feet, with the moonlight making his hair look even blonder. Charlie finally understands what everyone meant when they said "love at first sight".

Hermione makes a noise of frustration that causes Charlie to remember himself, but he doesn't take his eyes off the other man. "For the last time, Draco, I'm not a zombie. Think about it!"

The man gives Hermione a look of doubt. "There's been reports of zombies in America."

Hermione rolls her eyes at Draco. "To think we used to compete against each other for the highest scores in school." She gestures to the crowd that is slowly but surely moving past them, groaning and dragging their feet. "You're more than welcome to follow us to the end of the event. I'll be damned if I put all this effort into raising money for the LGBTQA community and not finish."

She turns back to him. "Come on, Charlie. We should continue if we want to finish at a decent hour."

"Right," he agrees half-heartedly. He still can't take his eyes off the blond. Draco studies the crowd, clearly looking to see if Hermione lied or not. "The crawl. We should. Yeah."

Hermione throws her hands up. "You know what? I'll just meet you at the finish line."

She doesn't give him time to protest as she turns and matches pace with the group of people passing them. Charlie coughs, his cheeks pinkening, rubbing the back of his neck as he realizes he's been staring. He drops his hand and averts his eyes as the blond looks at him.

"Are you here because you're gay too?" he gestures to the crowd.

Surely, the man can't be gay too. Charlie stumbles over his words, "I—what—you. No? I mean, yes, I'm gay. Well, more bi. But I'm not here because I'm bi. Not that I'm against coming to Pride events. But Hermione n—"

"You're cute when you're nervous," Draco says, stopping Charlie's babbling.

He falls quiet, thankful that his nonsense was cut off. He reaches back up to rub at his neck. "There's no way I'm getting out of this; Hermione's expecting me at that finish line. You could come along?" he says hopefully.

Draco looks down at his clothes and back at Charlie. "I'm not exactly dressed for that."

Charlie brightens. It wasn't a no. He starts zombie walking towards Draco. The man startles, immediately moving out of Charlie's reach.

"Oi, what are you doing?"

"You said you weren't dressed for it. I disagree. You definitely dressed to be the survivor," Charlie replies.

Draco considers this for a moment. "I suppose. You can buy me dinner when I beat you to the finish line."

He laughs and lunges toward the blond. Draco narrows his eyes as he barely manages to get out of his reach.

True to her word, Hermione is waiting at the finish line when they manage to arrive. They are both breathless from laughing. She gives him a knowing look. "I'm going to call a cab. Thanks for coming with."

Charlie opens his mouth to protest, but she quickly talks over him. "Who am I to stand in the way of whatever this is," she says, circling them with her gesture. "I mean, you somehow got Draco to lower himself to peasant level. That's a miracle, in and of itself."

Charlie senses a bit of anonymity between the two of them, so he speaks before Draco or Hermione have a chance to get into an argument; he'd rather not ruin the mood.

"I do owe you dinner," he says to Draco, "But I'm sure Ron would be angry if I didn't stay until your cab gets here."

"There's really no need. I'm a big girl. I can handle myself," she assures him.

That doesn't deter Charlie. Somehow, the three of them make amicable small talk until Hermione's cab get there. He turns to the blond when she's out of his sight, grinning at him.

"So dinner?"

Draco smirks at him. "I'm craving a salad."

Charlie gives him an incredulous look. "You can't be serious."

"How else am I to know you're not pretending to be human so you can eat my brains later?"

He laughs so hard his stomach and cheeks aches. "You never know; you just might like brains if you tried it."

Draco smirks. "Maybe I can be convinced to try it later. If you're lucky."

Charlie gives the blond a grin. "I'll take that. So a salad bar?"

OTP bootcamp: listless

Meet cute: I was unaware that there was an organised zombie crawl going on and I didn't realise you were in a costume. I screamed in your face because I truly thought I was facing a zombie invasion.

Scavenger hunt: Write a fic featuring Hermione as a main character

Serpent: Japanese rat snake- (pairing) Ron/Hermione

Gobstones: gold stone - opportunity; accuracy - (emotion) scared, power - (action) tripping, technique - (dialogue) "I promise."

Library Lover: Fangirl - (plot point) misunderstanding, (plot point) something coming to an end, (restriction) must feature a slash pairing

Book club: Tom Cullen - (action) being hypnotized, (word) moon, (time) nighttime

Showtime: One Short Day - (setting) Muggle London

Buttons: (dialogue) "Think about it.", (pairing) Ron/Hermione, (word) bath

Liza's Loves: Four Horsemen - write a story with the 4 words: (war) (famine) (death) and (conquest)

Resolutions: write 50 fics

365. 86. Dialogue - "All that blood looks good on you. It brings out your eyes."

Insane: 377. Word - desultory - (Slow, Sluggish)

Writing wc: 1671