Pages and pages again, Kevin had not stoped turning the illustrated encyclopedia of Magic’s pages for hours. What a boring day of the end of July when all the children his age were supposed to enjoy as much as possible their summer with their friends, but he could not. The boy was obligated to follow his mother every day to her work at Flourish and Blotts bookstore because he had no friends in his new city. The mother and son had moved 3 months ago from Paris to London, some time after she found out the relationship between her husband and his secretary at the French Ministry of Magic. It was why the boy knew nobody in this new country, and why he was living the worst summer of his life.

Turning the 1264th page of the old book, Kevin wondered what his Hogwarts life would be like. Would he have a lot of friends? Would his teachers like him?
He was suddenly extracted from his thoughts by a fat old wizard who knocked the boy’s shoulder. 

"Hi my boy, you've been on this chair for hours. Would you let an old man sit down a while?"

Kevin sighed, not very discreetly, then he nodded and put the book back on the shelf next to the chair and stood up to let, unwillingly, his seat.
It was only at this moment he realized that the shop was extremely busy with witches and wizards who had piled up waiting for something.

The 11 year old boy made his way to his mother to ask her about this agitation, but she didn’t reply and asked him to let her work as she was very busy trying to prepare everything. But very quickly the answer appeared in the shop, a man wearing a long green cloak pushed open the door to enter the shop and all the costumers started to bustle. Kevin’s mother ran to him then guided him to a big table with some big book stacks, then the man took a seat behind the table.
Kevin put himself in a corner, making space for all the costumers who were making a queue to meet the man, apparently an author, and to ask him to sign their books. After this small distraction, the boy got bored again, he was trying to make his way to the back shop to escape from the busy shop when his eyes met a young girl’s gaze who seemed at least as bored as he by the situation. She looked about his age, so Kevin thought that could be the opportunity to have a less boring day, and came closer from her until he could tap her shoulder. 

"Hey, do you know who this man is?"  he asked. 

Sonya trailed after her father towards the book shop, Flourish and Blotts. She had visited the store many times, after all it was one of the most well known wizarding book stores. Her father was visiting yet again for the release of his new book, Living Among Muggles: Your Basic Guide to Muggle Culture, which was exiting yet at the very same time a bit boring. Sonya was happy for her father's success but she'd been to to many of these events and was getting tired of them. It was the same thing over and over, take a long journey to the location, enter a bookstore crowded with people, pass around books and talk to them, and repeat. It started to get extremely repetitive.

Sonya walked into the bookshop, which was bustling with people, behind her father. She could barely say a word of good luck to him before a woman, who was most likely an employee of the store, whisked him away to the table with his books on it. She looked on as her father sat behind the table and began to speak to the people who lined up to talk to him. She knew this was going to take a while. Her father was quite talkative and charismatic and was bound to stay for more than a few hours. She sighed and walked near the back of the store to make room for more people at the front.

She leaned on a table of books and stared at the crowd, trying to think of something interesting to do, when her eyes met a boy's who looked bored and around her age. She gave him a small sympathetic smile then returned to gazing around the store. She decided to turn to a bookshelf and find something to read. She browsed the shelf until she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around. It was the boy she saw. "Hey, do you know who this man is?" he asked her. Sonya gave a nod. "Yes I do," she replied, "He's an author and also my father. He's here to do a book signing."

"He's an author and also my father. He's here to do a book signing."

Kevin suddenly felt intimated and his face turned red. She was the daughter of a celeb writer and he was just a bookseller’s son.
"I’m impressed, a lot of people came to meet him!" he finally said while regarding all the customers waiting to share some words with the author. But the girl looked a little bit bored about this event.

He was trying to think quickly about something to say or to ask. The boy wanted desperately have a new friend but he didn’t want seem like a bother to her. Making new friends had never been an easy task for him, finding the right balance between being interesting and not talking too much about himself was difficult. Also, the noisy bookstore was not actually the best place to speak with someone for the first time.
The young teenager suddenly remembered the very new broomstick that he had saw earlier in the day on his way to the shop. Hurried by his mother who was late to work, he had not stopped to have a look.

Maybe she would like to come with him to see it … Or maybe she would prefer to stay with her father. He didn’t know but he decided to try to be friendly.
"The quidditch store has received a new broomstick … Would you like come with me to have a look ?" He asked timidly.

Sonya gave a small smile when the boy commented at the amount of people that were there to meet her father. "Yeah, I guess lots of people like to ask him about his writing," she sighed. She didn't really get why her father appealed to so many people but she guessed they just found him interesting. He wrote books about muggles for wizards, which certain audiences definitely enjoyed judging by the turnout of his events.

This boy seemed quite nice and Sonya thought that it might be a nice change to have someone her age to hang out with at the event. "The quidditch store has received a new broomstick... Would you like to come with me to have a look?" He asked. "Sure!" she exclaimed, glad to have a reason to get out of the bookstore. She started to walk towards the exit with Kevin and paused to make eye contact with her father and gestured to the door to signal that she would be going out. He just nodded in response, they had been to Diagon Alley many times before and he knew she could find her way around.

"Oh uh- I'm Sonya by the way," she said suddenly, realizing she had never introduced herself. She held her hand out to shake and waited for the boy to introduce himself.

"Sure" his new acquaintance replied.
Then they walked out into Diagon Alley. During the end of summer the street was full of enthusiastic young teenagers who were running in all directions, the school supply list in their hand. They were followed by their parents, who seemed less exited by this task. Kevin took a deep breath. He had always liked the atmosphere of this place, the smell of pop-corn burned by some small dragon and the marvelous windows.
That had reminded him the French wizardly quarter, it was comforting for him to be in a familiar place.
After they had left the bookstore the girl said, "Oh uh- I'm Sonya by the way."
Kevin shook her hand then started to introduce himself while they were walking towards the broomstick shop.
"Enchanté. I'm Kevin. My mother works at this bookstore, it's why I was there. But it's actually very boring to spend all my days in this shop plenty of old books. It's like if I was already at Hogwarts" He laughed briefly "and I'm French by the way... but you have certainly already figured it out because of my accent... Oh look the broomstick shop is just here !"
The two young teenagers had arrived in front of the large window of the shop.