i gave up a long time ago on trying to find love [anna]

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Oscar didn't know what he was doing. That was a lie - he knew what he was doing, but it felt strange to be doing it alone. Caden was back at Beauxbatons, and it was the first time in a long time that Oscar's best friend wasn't by his side. He knew what it was like to be alone (he had gone to too many funerals not to know the feeling), but it was different when you knew there was someone there, but they weren't with you. Wandering around the unfamiliar school without Caden there offering witty commentary made it feel even more foreign. Oscar had managed to find his way to the third floor - which was more of an accomplishment than he really cared to admit, with all of the moving staircases - and was pretty sure that he had also found the corridor that was forbidden to them. He didn't know why it was forbidden, exactly, but everyone else seemed to think it was a good enough reason to avoid it, so Oscar was going to follow their lead. Instead he just circled around the floor, trying to find a staircase so he could continue onwards and upwards.

@annelise

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Anna was wandering around the castle at the moment, heading down from the Gryffindor common room. She had a free period and probably should be busy studying, but she was too distracted. Heck, how was everyone in this school not distracted. The Triwizard Tournament was happening this year, students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons were here. The energy level in the castle was higher than it had been in a while, which she thought was a good thing. Still, she wasn't sure exactly how to act with all the new faces. She knew the point of the tournament was to make friends, but was that supposed to happen now or later? After all, they were competing against one another ... at least they would be once the tournament began. She decided to be nice, unless she ran into someone who was a complete jerk. Then she saw someone. A boy, walking around the third floor. He wasn't going into the forbidden corridor, which was a good thing, but what was he doing there. She made her way towards him and called out, "Hey, you lost?" She smiled, though she was nervous inside. This was the first effort she made to talk to one of the foreigners.

@oscar

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Oscar turned around when he heard a voice calling out to ask if someone was lost. Considering there was no one else in his line of sight, Oscar assumed that the voice was for him, so he turned around and put an easy-going smile on his face. “Sure I am.” He said, French accent lilting slightly as he ambled towards the red-headed girl that had apparently called out for him. She was pretty enough, Oscar supposed, but nothing when compared to Margaux. The Beauxbatons boy still needed to make some sort of master plan for winning his ex-girlfriend back, but that was a different scheme for a different day. “Could you point me to the stairs?” He asked politely, hoping that all of his practice in the English language was paying off in his ability to communicate with the girl. “My name is Oscar Gauthier, by the way.” He winked at the girl. “Just in case you wanted to root for me to win the Tournament.” It was fake, all of it, but pretending to be confident made Oscar feel slightly better about his abysmal odds to win the position of Beauxbatons champion, let alone the tournament itself.

@annelise

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The boy turned around and Anna wanted to stare, but she didn't. This one was definitely attractive. Not that that was all that mattered, but it was something she couldn't help but notice. Her smile widened a little at his question. She liked his accent. Granted, she liked accents in general, but this one wasn't too strong to understand, which was nice. She nodded, "Sure, do you want to go up or down?" she asked, even though she was positive it was a confusing question. The thing was, the stairs didn't stay in the same place, so her suggestion of what stairs he should take depended on where he wanted to go. 

He introduced himself and winked and Anna's eyebrows flew up. Being cocky was different than being a jerk, right? Besides, for some reason his attitude just made her want to laugh, though she couldn't explain it. So she gave a small laugh, hoping she didn't offend him. "And I'm Anna Weasley," she gave a small shrug before copying him. "Just in case you want to cheer for me to win the Tournament." Why did she say that? He was going to think she was arrogant now too, but that didn't stop her. She wanted him to know she wasn't just a young schoolgirl. She was old enough to be in the tournament as well. And she was definitely entering, though so many students from Hogwarts were that the chances she would get picked were almost infinitesimal.

@oscar

[Deleted]

Oscar took a moment to process the girl’s question, perplexed. The question itself didn’t make the most sense – didn’t stairs go both ways? – and Oscar had to take a moment to make sure that he hadn’t just misinterpreted the language. Nope, she had definitely asked which way he had wanted to go. “Up would be better.” He responded. “I would not say no to down if it was the only way.” Oscar hoped that what he was saying was making sense. He hoped that the redhead would tell him if he needed to repeat something for her, because he would…actually, he would definitely not ask her to repeat something. He didn’t want to be the annoying foreign kid who couldn’t understand English. He would just be the annoying foreign kid who was too attractive for anyone else to handle.

“I would say it’s nice to meet you, Anna, but I don’t cheer for the opposite team.” Oscar said with a jovial smile. “Whoever wins from Beauxbatons, I will support.” He continued. “We travelled a long way to come here, and we will win.” Ozzy continued to smile at Anna. He still needed to enter his name in the cup. His headmaster was keeping track of who had and hadn’t yet entered their name, and his head would be on the block if he “forgot”. “So, when I am picked, you will cheer for me, yes?” He reiterated.

@annelise

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Anna nodded when he said he'd rather go up. Then he was saying something about going down and she had to think about what he said for a minute before it made sense to her ... mostly. She wasn't going to make a big deal out of it though. If he wanted to go up, she could help him do that. She turned around to the stairs she'd just came down, but they were moving away. She turned back to Oscar with a little, semi-nervous smile. "I can help you go up, but it might take a while. The stairs just left," she said, gesturing to the moving stairs with her hand. Hopefully he wouldn't be annoyed at her. It wasn't her fault the stairs moved away!!

As he said how he wasn't going to cheer for her in his lilting accent, Anna's smile turned to a smirk and her head twisted to the side a little as she gave him a sarcastic look. "See," she started, shrugging a little. "That's where you're wrong. The whole reason the tournament is held here is so we don't have to move far to win. It's such a shame you don't want to cheer for the winning team though." She gave a smug smile at him, shaking her head a little, "And I'd love to cheer for you if you get chosen, but I'll be too busy celebrating my chance to participate." He started it, right? And she wasn't about to let someone she didn't know treat her condescendingly. She can hold her own in situations like this.

@oscar

[Deleted]

The stairs had left? Oscar understood that they were in a magical castle, but stairs coming and going as they pleased was not something he was used to. He had no doubt that if someone were to say something similar to his classmates, they would be equally confused. The Hogwarts students seemed to forget that the accents were not just to show superiority; English was a terrifying beast of a second language. Ozzy watched as the stairs flew away to goodness knew where, sighing. All he wanted to do was finish his rounds of the castle so he could go back to the carriage and study for the upcoming tournament. He nodded at the redhead – Anna, he really should use her name – but didn’t say anything. He would just sound snappish if he did.

The next time Anna spoke, Oscar had to admit that he was overwhelmed by all of the words she said at once. Sorting through them in his head was no easy task, but he was determined not to let her know that he was in over his head. He took a deep breath and gave himself time to process the information before beginning to formulate a reply. He would have stuttered otherwise, and that would have let Anna in on the secret. “The only reason you won last time was because you had two champions.” He said evenly. He didn’t need to say that one of those champions had died in the process for the message to get across. “Beauxbatons has not won since the tournament restarted. It is time for you to stop being greedy and realize that the rest of us are trying to do our school proud, also. Just because we have no Harry Potter does not mean we are not worthy of your time.” Ozzy cleared his throat and turned on his heel. “I will find stairs by myself.” He began to walk away. Stupid, self-important girl didn’t realize that this was beyond just a personal thing. She had gone too far.

@annelise

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He didn't say anything about the stairs moving, which was kind of a relief to Anna. Maybe she should try to explain the staircases, but they were tricky and he wasn't asking for an explanation, so he probably didn't care for one.
Then he got angry. Anna tried to keep her expression even as she listened, but she wasn't sure if she did. Where did all this anger come from? Wasn't he the one who started the bragging? What did he expect her to do, fall all over him? This was not going at all the way she expected her first interaction with one of the foreign students to go. She ... felt guilty, though she didn't really understand why. She was going to have to try and make peace with him somehow.

Then he just turned and started walking away. "Hey, wait!" Anna called after him, hurrying so she was nearer to him. She didn't jump in front of him and block his escape, like she would have done if they were friends. She had a feeling that might make things worse. "I'm sorry," she said simply, hoping that would make him pause before he left. It wasn't something she said often, but she didn't have too much pride to get the words out. And she meant it. Hopefully he could tell that. "I wasn't trying to say you and your schoolmates are not worthy of my time," she said slowly, thinking through each word before she said it. She was trying not to offend him again. "I'm just excited for the chance to bring honor to Hogwarts, but that doesn't make your school any less important," she explained. "What I'm really excited about is the chance to participate, and the chance to make new friends. I apologize again if what I said offended you, that's not what I wanted." She waited, not sure at all how he would respond to that, if at all. She mostly just expected him to stalk off, looking for stairs to carry him where-ever it was that he wanted to go. At least she'd done all she could to make things right. No matter what he said- or didn't say- she didn't have to feel as guilty about this conversation as she would have otherwise.

@oscar

[Deleted]

When Oscar heard Anna’s voice imploring him to wait, he sighed, but halted. He wasn’t her plaything, and he certainly didn’t want to continue to argue with her. The muscles in his shoulders tensed when she spoke again, and didn’t relax despite the fact that she had apologized. “That is certainly what you sounded like.” He cut in before she could continue to speak. “It is always Hogwarts this and Hogwarts that, and Hogwarts is so good! I do not like your school at all!” He huffed. That wasn’t exactly true, but it was the most hurtful thing that he could think to say without actually being offensive. If Oscar offended one of the Hogwarts students and they reported it to their headmaster, he was as good as back at Beauxbatons. He didn’t want that, but he wanted even less for this girl to continue on and on and on about how amazing Hogwarts was. They didn’t need any more honor! Was producing the boy who saved the Wizarding world not enough for them?! And Anna didn’t seem to know when teasing stopped and insulting began. Greedy, stupid, and selfish. He had already made up his mind about this girl. She wasn’t even pretty!

“If you are looking for friends, look other places.” He snapped at her. “I have plenty of friends!” That was a lie, but Anna didn’t need to know that. All he had was Caden, and he was an entire English Channel away. Oscar began moving again, stalking down the hallway. One time he tried to do something good, tried to make something of himself, and look how it was going! This was why he never tried – all it resulted in was a lot of pain and a lot of unnecessary yelling. Oscar couldn’t find the stairs and was thus forced to stop again, still fuming. He began muttering underneath his breath, selecting a few choice French curses to spit out at the ground. He hated this. Screw offending a Hogwarts student – he wanted to go back to his school, where he could fall back into the slum of not trying, and be happy doing it.

@annelise

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Anna was done with Oscar. She sure as heck wasn't going to chase after him again. Obviously she'd upset him, but she also apologized. No need for him to be so rude. Sure, he was handsome and all, but a little bit of attractiveness was not enough to deal with the major attitude problems he obviously had. Her teeth clenched when he insulted her school. "Then it's a shame you have to stay here," she retorted. She didn't care what he thought anymore. "And, by the way, I doubt you care but I happen to like Beauxbatons. My favorite aunt went there and told me stories about it growing up." She closed her mouth before she could tell him how she'd always wished she could go to Aunt Fleur's school as a child. It didn't matter. And she loved Hogwarts. Truly and honestly. Only, as a child, Beauxbaton had seemed exciting and interesting. Stop it. She just needed to get away from him. Apparently Oscar had a gift for bringing out her normally dormant temper.

She turned away and then rolled her eyes when he couldn't see her face. She didn't want to make things worse, though she wasn't sure she could imagine them being worse. She didn't want to. "Fine then. Have fun with your friends," she said angrily before she started walking away. What was the point in staying if she was just going to get mad at him and he was going to get mad at her? In fact, since she knew he wanted to go up, she was going to make her way down. It'd just be more annoying to run into him on another floor. Maybe she'd make her way to the library. 

@oscar 
(ooc: The end? Haha unless he wants to prolong the conversation)

[Deleted]

It really was a shame that he had to stay there, Oscar thought mutinously. “I do not care.” He told Anna bluntly when she said that she liked Beauxbatons. “I do not care about anything you have to say.” Ozzy proclaimed. He didn’t give a damn about her aunt or the stories Anna heard while growing up – that didn’t change the fact that she had all but said that Beauxbatons had no chance at winning the Triwizard Tournament. He was going to prove her wrong, that much was for sure. Even if he wasn’t chosen as champion – and he was certain he was going to be – Oscar was going to study night and day for the competition. He was going to show her what happened when you messed with a boy with nothing left to lose. When Anna stomped away, Ozzy was glad – he could finally continue his survey of the castle, unaccompanied by stupid redheads who thought they were better than everybody. He turned one hundred and eighty degrees before walking away, this time for good.

@annelise
(end)