Costumed

For Melody, in honor of our matching Halloween costumes, and for Amber, in honor of Arrow.

"Oliver!"

No answer.

"Oliver!"

Nothing.

"OLIV—"

"What?"

Katie leaned against the banister and tilted her head back to call up the stairs. "We're going to be late!"

"I don't want to go."

Katie let out a sigh and peeled off her five-inch stilettos. "What do you mean, you don't want to go?" she asked as she climbed the stairs to the room they shared. "How can you not want to—oh, Oliver, honestly."

Oliver Wood was sitting on their bed, scowling at the mirror. "I screwed it up."

Katie lowered herself onto an ottoman and braced her elbows against her knees. "I told you not to touch it."

"I thought it needed more green."

Two weeks ago, when George and Angelina had invited them to a Halloween party at the joke shop, Oliver and Katie had started their hunt for the perfect couple's costume. Oliver's suggestion that Katie dress like a Snitch was quickly shot down when Katie pointed out that Oliver just wanted an excuse to drag his old Keeper uniform out of storage; Oliver had retaliated by vetoing Katie's idea of dressing as old professors from Hogwarts ("If you dress up as McGonagall I'll never be able to sleep with you again"). But finally, after dozens of bad ideas, they'd stumbled across something perfect: the Green Arrow.

"He's a Muggle superhero named Oliver Queen," Katie had explained, pointing to the comic book she'd found in the Muggle section of Flourish and Blotts. "He's got a sidekick called the Black Canary, and—"

"She's quite attractive," Oliver had said, examining the cover.

"And he's sarcastic and egotistical." Katie had tapped the cover. "Just like you!"

"Ha, ha," Oliver had said with an eye roll, but he had also admitted that he liked the look of that Black Canary's leather corset. And so here they were, with Katie in her corset and fishnet tights, and Oliver, a green hood tied at his neck and an empty tube of green makeup in one hand.

Katie sighed. "I told you we should have just bought you a mask," she said, fishing her wand out of the holster at her hip.

"Masks make me claustrophobic!" Oliver peered at his face in the mirror. "That's why I thought we could just paint it on."

Katie beckoned for him to move closer. "I did just paint it on. I'm a master at makeup, I had it perfect." She pinched his green chin between her fingers and tapped his face with her wand. "I don't know why you decided to go in and paint your entire bloody face—"

"I didn't mean to." Oliver winced as the makeup was syphoned from his pores. "I just wanted more green. But I added a bit too much on the left, so I tried to even it out on the right, and then. . . ." He trailed off, gesturing at his newly clean face. "I was like a bloody walking advertisement for Slytherin."

"And you used the whole tube of makeup, didn't you." Katie shook her head. "You can't be the Green Arrow without the mask, Oliver."

"No one will know the difference. It's not as if they read Muggle comic books."

"Still!"

She was still holding his chin. With a little smirk, he took her hand and moved it to cup his cheek. "You know," he said, giving her a very deliberate once-over, "I think you're right."

"About what, the fact that you ruin everything? Tell me the truth, did you do this on purpose so we'd have to fall back on your Snitch idea?"

He grinned. "I meant, you're right that I can't be the Green Arrow without the mask. We might as well not even go."

Katie raised her eyebrows. "You want to skip the party? After all that time we put into our costumes?"

"I dunno." Oliver trailed his fingers down her arm and lightly tapped her exposed collarbone. "I can think of some other ways we could spend tonight."

Katie let her face relax into a smirk.

"We can still use the costumes," he added.

Her smirk deepened.

"And really, who's going to miss us?"

"Fine." Katie stood. "Let me just send an owl to Angelina's and let her know we aren't coming."

Oliver's grin became triumphant as Katie leaned in for a quick kiss and then turned to run down the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she fished around for a quill and scratched a message to Angelina.

Oliver's being difficult. Bring the party here?

"Katie!" Oliver called from upstairs. "Hurry up!"

Rolling her eyes, Katie handed the parchment to her owl and sent him out the window. "Coming!"

It was no more than five minutes minutes later when they heard a chorus of cracks downstairs.

"What the…?" Oliver rolled off the bed and took a step toward the door. "Did someone just Apparate here?"

Katie bit her lip to hide her smirk. "I dunno. Why don't you go downstairs and see?"

Oliver took another step toward the door, but then he stopped himself and turned around. "You did something."

Katie lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "I don't know what you mean."

"You've got that look on your face. The one like the Weasleys used to get when they pulled jokes. You—hang on, did you invite the joke shop party here?"

Katie grinned as she handed him his Green Arrow cloak. "Better put this on before you go down there to investigate. Don't want them to find out your secret identity."

"Katie!"

She threw back her head and laughed. "Don't worry," she said, getting out of the bed and rocking up on tiptoe to press a kiss against his mouth. "We'll still use the costumes later."

And with that, she pulled open their bedroom door and skipped down the stairs to meet the party.

[Archery Competition: Bow]

[Restricted Challenge: Exactly one set of parentheses]