Still Standing (Oscar)

[camila calderón]

April 27, 2025

With her second album released the month prior, Camila was trying to lay low for the evening—easier said than done, being her. At least the promotions she had done for the album were mostly finished, though that meant that she was now beginning preparations for her tour. If she could just stand in front of an audience and sing, that would have been perfectly fine by her, but that wasn’t how her management wanted it. No, she was back to her grueling routine of choreography sessions for hours a day, every day, and she was beginning to remember why she hated it so much with her first tour.

When she wasn’t in a dance studio and repeating the same movements over and over again, she was in some fitting for a costume or going over security procedures with her team. She hated that her life had become so complicated, though at least her fans would appreciate it… hopefully. What she really wanted was for them to discover her debut album so that she could go back to writing her own material and singing in Spanish. It seemed impossible some days, with the reactions she’d heard from people about her own music. They didn’t like it just because they couldn’t understand it, which seemed awfully hopeless for her prospects. Her English still felt stilted when she spoke, even if she had committed her lyrics to memory.

She kept the hood of her sweatshirt up as she walked through Muggle London and back to her flat from dance practice. On that side of the magical divide, she was fortunately just as normal as ever, though she secretly hoped that she would run into Freddie again if she passed by the coffee shop in which they had caught up with one another. It was wishful thinking, she realized as she glanced in the window of the café. He was probably busy with Quidditch or something again, though it wasn’t as though she didn’t have her own schedule to deal with.

As she looked through the window, she noticed someone else had come to stand behind her in its reflection. She startled upon remembering that she couldn’t just reach for her wand and wondered momentarily if she had been followed. “Sorry,” she spoke, her Argentine accent heavy as she tried to hide her discomfort. “Can I help you?”

@oscar

[Deleted]

Muggle London was confusing, especially when you hadn't meant to end up there. Magical London was confusing too, but at least on the magical side, Oscar was able to ask people from help without feeling like a fool. He was also able to use his wand there, which made navigation the slightest bit easier. He hadn’t meant to start following someone out of Diagon Alley, but Oscar was lost and he had no idea where to go and a slightly familiar face was better than an entirely unfamiliar one. When the woman he had been following stopped in front of the coffee shop, Oscar stopped behind her, trying to find the right words so as not to come off as… well, a stalker.

When the woman spoke first, Oscar was surprised to hear the accent in her voice, but it relieved him. They were both foreigners here, and maybe that would gain him a little sympathy. “Ah, yes.” If he was playing up his French accent, it wasn’t on purpose. “I am a bit lost. I am looking for…” Shoot, what was a magical location that sounded like it could be Muggle, in case he was overheard? “I am looking for Fortescue’s. I am… lost.”

camila calderón

[camila calderón]

April 27, 2025

“Ah, yes,” the young man behind her spoke. He was clearly foreign, too, as she was, but almost certainly French. Camila almost wished that he were Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking, because it would have made it easier on her, but she would hopefully be able to understand his English. At least he couldn’t get frustrated with her for not being a native speaker, either… That was one positive. She turned around from the window to face him. “I am a bit lost,” he explained. “I am looking for…” She wasn’t someone who could really help with directions—not really—and not in English, but what he added next was surprising. “I am looking for Fortescue’s. I am… lost.”

“Fortescue’s”? The name sounded really familiar to Camila. Unless there was a non-magical business around of the same name, he had to have been talking about… the ice cream parlor. The one with the sticky toffee pudding flavor that she had been to with Brandon. That was all the way back in Diagon Alley, far from where she stood. Maybe there just happened to be another business called Fortescue’s around, like a department store or a grocer or something. She wasn’t sure how common the name Fortescue was, but it was possible… Wasn’t it?

“Ice cream?” Camila questioned. If she was wrong in thinking that he was a wizard, then at least he would only think of her as some dumb and confused tourist. But if he was a wizard, she thought again… Didn’t he know who she was?

@oscar

[Deleted]

The woman who he had stopped seemed to pause after his question, and Oscar wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or bad. She could be wondering why another wizard was talking to her on the Muggle side of town, or she could simply be a Muggle who was wondering whether they knew of a Fortescue’s or not. The woman finally asked if he was looking for ice cream, and Oscar nodded vigorously, glad that his guess of her being a witch wasn’t horribly off the mark. “Yes, I am looking for ice cream!” He was perhaps a bit too enthusiastic for someone who genuinely wanted ice cream and not directions back to the only place in the city they felt safe, but hopefully a passerby would just think he was rather excitable. “Do you know how to get there?”

camila calderón

[camila calderón]

April 27, 2025

Ice cream. It was ice cream that he said he was looking for! Camila’s eyes lit up, recognizing that he did know the ice cream parlor and that he was a wizard. Even though her English wasn’t as good as she thought it should have been, she could work with that. She smiled at the stranger in understanding. Perfect. She relaxed a little, letting her guard down some. He was a wizard.
 
“Yes!” she nodded, happy that she had figured it out. “Okay. Sorry. My English is not good,” she explained. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to give him accurate directions, and she knew that she wouldn’t just be able to pull up a map of walking directions on her mobile phone. Unfortunately, as nice as it would have been, trying to locate somewhere that Muggles couldn’t casually reach was out of the question. She really did need to get back to her flat, but she wasn’t just going to leave the guy standing there. What if he knew who she was? Even if he didn’t, if he saw her photograph later, he would know that she was the girl who had just left him outside some Muggle shop. The media wouldn’t be happy about that one.
 
Camila thought for another moment. She could have tried to Apparate with him, but she couldn’t risk Splinching herself. That was all she needed, too, to be hospitalized when she needed to be preparing for her tour. Besides, if he needed to know the physical route back, he wouldn't learn it if he just showed up at the place. “…We will walk?” she suggested to the stranger, hoping that he was alright with that. She could walk him back to the ice cream parlor and then Disapparate out of there and back nearer to her flat.

@oscar

[Deleted]

The woman nodded along with him, and Oscar felt a little less bad for seeming so overenthusiastic about something simple. She apologized for her poor English, and Oscar shrugged his shoulders. “Mine is not, either.” It was markedly better than it had been when he was a sixth year at Beauxbatons, and he now knew that was because he had spent an entire year at Hogwarts, speaking English. Even if he didn’t remember his grasp on the language improving, it had nonetheless – like muscle memory, almost. The woman offered to walk, and Oscar nodded again, glad that she knew where they were going and the way to get there.

“I am from France,” Oscar offered after they had begun moving in the right direction. “This is not the easiest place to be if you do not know English, non?” In France practically everyone had some level of English proficiency. The same couldn’t be said for England and French proficiency. Oscar also knew the Mermish language, but that wasn’t easy to speak, especially not in a Muggle area where it would sound like he was out of his mind.

camila calderón

[camila calderón]

April 27, 2025

The young man shrugged at her apology for her horrible English and said that his command of the language wasn’t great, either. He sounded slightly more fluent than she was, though, and he nodded as she suggested that they could walk the way back to Diagon Alley and to the ice cream parlor.
 
“I am from France,” the young man explained his own foreignness. “This is not the easiest place to be if you do not know English, non?”
 
Camila shook her head. It really wasn’t. Being in England almost seemed to necessitate the knowledge of English. Even if there were plenty of other people from elsewhere in the world, it didn’t help if she could only communicate with them in Spanish, Portuguese, or her very broken English. “I am from Argentina,” she smiled, not caring to reveal that she was a celebrity when it hadn’t been brought up. It was easier to make conversation that way, when there were no expectations on her because of her fame. “It is… very hard,” she continued as they walked. The culture shock, too. Spanish and Portuguese were closer to French, though and Camila briefly wondered how much she and this young man would have been able to understand of one another if they spoke only in their native languages.
 
“What is your name?” she added, before choosing to introduce herself as she would have with anyone who knew her before she had taken her stage name. “I am Carmen.”

@oscar

[Deleted]

The woman said she was from Argentina, which was interesting for Oscar; he had never been outside of Europe, and he wondered what life was like outside of it. He didn’t even know he had left the Continent prior to his work excursion to England, but that had obviously been a falsehood. She agreed with his assessment that England was much too difficult if you didn’t know the language, which gave him some measure of comfort; at least he wasn’t stupid for being unable to move confidently through the country.

The woman introduced herself as Carmen, and Oscar gave her his best winning smile. “Oscar Gauthier. Enchantée, Carmen.” Oscar wasn’t going to flirt with her, of course – he was a married man, even if he remembered little of the marriage and his wife. “Why are you in England?” Maybe she was working there, like he had been before discovering everything.

camila calderón

[camila calderón]

April 27, 2025

The young man introduced himself as Oscar Gauthier. The name didn’t ring any bells for Camila—good ones or bad ones—which she supposed was a good thing. “Why are you in England?”
 
There it was. Camila knew that she should have known that that question would come up. She thought about giving him a vague answer and blaming it on her lack of English ability, but then she wondered what might happen if Oscar saw later on that she was actually a famous singer and had lied about it to his face. She paused for a moment. “I am a singer,” she answered casually, not wanting to get caught up in the same confusion that happened when she was under the effects of Polyjuice Potion as Julieta. “And you?”

@oscar