Queuing and Befriending (Humphrey)

Amelie's parents, being both rich and cultured, were constantly bringing her all over the world on exciting - or sometimes terribly boring - holidays. She supposed that was a good thing. A lot of people would jump for these opportunities, and she got to travel to loads of places, even though she was only twelve. Also, she got to pick up a lot from the places she visited, both language and culture-wise, so overall it must be a good thing. It was just that she was tired from a busy and exciting term at Beauxbatons, but straight away her parents were putting her on a plane and expecting her to be in perfect form for a busy holiday. Nevermind. Over the past few weeks, she had been brushing up on her English. There were no English classes at school, so she seemed to have forgotten a lot. Luckily, her parents were both fairly fluent, but she'd still like to be able to hold a conversation with somebody by herself.

While her stepfather went to watch an English muggle football match, her mother had promised to take her and her sister to the magical street in England known as Diagon Alley. At first glance, it didn't seem to be as good as Avenue de Ombre Noir, she was still excited about going into all of the strange shops. Especially when they walked past an ice-cream parlour. After about an hour of shopping, Amelie was bored and hungry, but Kalle and her mother wanted to go into some stupid clothes shop. So they agreed that she could go and get some ice-cream and meet with them afterwards. This had turned out much better than she expected, being free of her family, who were getting a little annoying, and having the opportunity to compare English magical ice-cream to French magical ice-cream.

The queue was unfortunately long, it being a hot summer's day, so she frowned, but dealt with it, and went to join the queue behind another boy. This was the perfect time to test her English skills, she decided, and she couldn't pass up the opportunity. "Hello," she said, her accent thick but her words hopefully understandable enough. "My name is Amelie." She smiled, hoping to make a friend, before suddenly feeling slightly doubtful that he would want to be friends with a random French girl who started talking to him in a queue. He might think she was a bit weird, even. Although she was as normal as could be, at least compared to so many Beauxbatons students and people she had seen during this holiday to England.

Humphrey found that he was missing Hogwarts terribly over summer break, it just didn't feel the same when he was away. He found that he missed Dakota in particular, the best friend he'd made recently. If he could spend the summer with her he would have, but sadly he was unable to. On a lovely afternoon he decided he should pay a visit to Diagon Alley in an attempt to pass the time. The boy wasn't looking for anything in particular, so took to browsing the different shops. Before too long had passed he found he was rather hungry, and decided to stop at Florean Fortescue's for some ice cream. After all, there was nothing better than ice cream on a hot summer day. Not surprisingly, there was a long line and he stepped into it, resigned to the fact it would be awhile before he was able to get his tasty treat.

While he was waiting in line someone with a heavy French accent started speaking to him, and he turned around to see a girl about his age standing there. When Humphrey saw her smiling he decided to smile back and shook the girl's hand in greeting. "Hello Amelie, I'm Humphrey Williams. Nice to meet you. What brings you to Diagon Alley today?" he asked, wondering if he could be of any help to her. It was obvious that she wasn't from England and he knew Diagon Alley fairly well, having been here twice before and done a good amount of exploring. The place was full of interesting shops and things to see, the trick was knowing where to go. There was always more to discover in a place like this, he'd found.

Queueing had always been her least favourite thing to do in the entire world, and this one seemed unfortunately huge, but at least she had found someone to talk to as she waited, someone who seemed quite nice. Around her age, and seemingly one of those stereotypical polite English people. If a foreign person randomly started talking to Amelie, she might not be so kind. Well, she would, actually. She was quite a polite girl. But that wasn't the point. The point was, he seemed nice. Which was good. Because she had already forgotten where that clothes boutique place was. And that was where she was supposed to meet her mother and sister in a while. So she could probably do with some directions, and she imagined this British boy would be able to help her, if he did know the way any better than she did.

"'Eeet is nice to meet you, Humphrey," she beamed. She was starting to doubt her English skills, and whether they would be any use in this situation. Her accent was thick, and her English teacher back in muggle school had been French herself, so probably not brilliant at the pronounciation herself. Now that she was faced with a real English person, she felt as though she might not be easily understood, with her accent. Nonetheless, she didn't run away, but kept the smile on her face and tried to talk a little more. "I am on vacation 'ere. I am going shopping with my mama and sister. But I 'ear zat ze ice-cream here is good, so I want to try one." That was pretty good, was it not? "Which flavour will you buy, Humphrey?"