Chapter Two

He was leaning nonchalantly against the brick wall of the platform, his head bowed. A black baseball cap pushed his curly, dark hair into his eyes. His shirt was a lime green flannel and his jeans were a worn blue-grey. I had never seen him before, and now I couldn't take my eyes off him. He looked so different from everyone else I knew...so perfect.

"Victoire!"

The high shriek was followed by a mass of thick brown hair in my face. "I've missed you!" the girl with her arms around me continued to shout. Once she pulled away from me, she stood to look me in the face, her own alight with excitement. She stood a full head shorter than me, but by now I was used to most everyone being such.

"I missed you, too!" I told Alex, quickly, and what I hoped to be unnoticeably, glancing over my shoulder at the boy.

"Vee, I have so much to tell you about my trip to Israel," Alex said. "I tried to send you an owl, but I had to travel Muggle and they wouldn't allow me to bring little Apirka on the airplane! I felt so bad that I didn't keep in touch all summer so I - What do you keep looking at? Vee, are you even listening to me?"

I looked back at her. "Sorry," I said, "it's - it's that boy over there."

"Who is that?"

"I dunno,"

"Well, let's go introduce ourselves!" She grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him.

"Alex, no! I don't-"But we were face-to-face with him before I could stop her.

"Hi!" she said, a bit overly happy, "I'm Alex Boatwright and this is my friend Victoire Weasley. I don't recognize you, are you new here?"

The boy stood up a little straighter and adjusted his hat farther back on his head. "Yeah," he said. "I'm Matt Carson. I just moved here from the U.S."

He was American. I may have sighed slightly. Now that I stood closer to him, I noticed that her was around a head taller than I was and his eyes were the brightest, clearest blue I had ever seen eyes be. I smiled at him, and when he smiled back, he revealed two rows of perfectly staight teeth. I felt like my insides were melting.
"That's neat!" Alex continued. "What year are you in?"

"Um, 6th." He sounded slightly taken aback by her sudden friendliness.

"Oh, us too!"

"Cool," he said. An awkward silence followed.

"So, did you, er, get everything on the train all right?" I attempted to join in the conversation.

"Yeah." He nodded. Another awkward silence.

"Well we're going to get on the train. You're welcome to sit with us if you want, Matt!" Alex said with a toothy grin. Matt nodded in response before we walked away.

"He seems nice," Alex told me with a wink as we climbed on to the train. I smiled back, but something deep inside of me was aching to magic her back to Israel, because I had a feeling that that would not be the only time her bold personality would get in my way.