RP: Museum and Reunions

[shh_su]

Date: 5 February 2005
Characters: Su Li, Cedric Diggory
Location: The Museum
Status: Private
Summary: Su sees the museum and an old friend
Completion: Complete

Comments

[shh_su]

"Swamped? Yes, I can only imagine, it looks like you've done a lot of work here. The offer stands, though, just owl if you're interested."

Su giggled. "My parents didn't want me coming back either, so I finally said I was leaving with or without their blessing, and they had to agree, or else lose face. It's good to know how to work the system." Now that she'd been back for several months, Su didn't feel as angry with her parents. In a way, the David debacle had been good, as it had driven her to claim her freedom. "They gave me a bit of money, which was useful, but my mother and aunts keep sending me herbs, and I've been able to trade with those, as they were rare in England even before the war." Su grinned. "Don't tell, though, I'm supposed to be using them to brew the Chinese equivalent of Pepper-Up."

"I'm glad not everything was lost, then," Su said before getting up to look at Ragnarök. It was beautiful and terrible, truly a masterpiece. She stood, arms wrapped around herself, totally absorbed in the painting until she heard Cedric clearing his throat, which brought her back to herself.

Sitting back down, she took a sip of tea to cover her slight blush. That was rude, Su, her mother's voice admonished in her head. "I'm sorry. I haven't been to a museum in ages. I'm interested in your vision for this place, though. What are your plans?"

[shh_cedric]

He watched her set the painting then observe while it unfolded. He waited for it to finish, then cleared his throat and she turned again, asking him about his vision. Which made him grin.

"You asked the 50-galleon question, Susie-Q."

And that ... had just popped out. "Er, sorry." She wasn't a young teenager anymore. "I shouldn't tease with old names. Anyway" -- he spun in his chair and grabbed a piece of plyboard he'd been working on for Painting Day -- "allow me to show you. At least some of it. You get to be my test subject, actually. I'm putting together some exhibits for this public painting day that I'm planning."

he set the plyboard on his desk and pulled his wand, tapping it, and a model slowly stacked itself on the board, showing all three floors in a cross section, with some of the back areas displaying what he hoped would be magical Enlargement. "The expanded areas are just theoretical at this point. I've asked a Charms expert about expanding the new museum like the old one was and he thinks it'll be possible to do, but I'll have to talk to him further before I really have a good idea of just how much he can manage.

"But this is a rough idea of what I've got in mind, for now. I'd like to bring out as much as we can -- feasibly. And I'd like to give as much attention as I can to various world cultures. I do think it's important to showcase the British. It's our museum. But beyond that, I want to feature the larger world.

"We have some very respectable collections now in certain areas. I'd like -- eventually -- to expand it. No museum can showcase everything. And what gets focus reflects a lot of things -- availability, contacts, even money. But also interest. I'll confess that my own background has made me very interested in expanding the museum into the native magic of areas that Britain has colonized -- Canada, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, in particular. Not just British magic in the colonies, but the native magic it encountered too -- and how that shaped and changed it."

He sat back. "So -- what do you think? More importantly, how does it look. I know it's miniaturized, but anything about it turn off your eye? I'm playing around both with the ideas for display and with the magic, so feel free to offer critique."

[shh_su]

Susie-Q? Su had completely forgotten that old nickname. She laughed. "No, it's fine. I haven't heard that in years."

"A guinea pig, am I? Glad I can be of use." Su was still grinning as she watched the model construct itself. A rather neat bit of magic, that. "The expanded areas look wonderful, but if your Charms expert can't manage it, you might talk to Terry Boot, since he's in town. He was incredible at Charms at Hogwarts, and I hear he worked in the Ministry, doing something with that as well."

Su examined the model for a few moments. "It looks good. I'd love to see a larger section for the Asian art, but I might have to admit to a slight bias there." She smiled. "If you're going to showcase how British and native magic influenced each other, will you be doing that for other cultures as well? China and Japan, for example, or Egypt and Greece? That might be too much to attempt, but depending on how you arranged the exhibits, it could be feasible. What if, instead of the wall between these two galleries"--Su pointed--"you had a half wall, or some sort of display to provide a partial division of the space. That would be a strong indication that the two areas are linked culturally and historically as well."

"I'm also curious about how people will react to this, since everyone is still healing from the War. I imagine there will be some people who resent anything not British, who feel a need to reaffirm their cultural identity, and prove that Voldemort didn't destroy everything. Whereas others are probably more open to seeing other, and possibly better, ways of organizing life, and would welcome your plans to feature other cultures." Su laughed. "I'm sorry, that last bit probably isn't helpful in the least. It's your fault, though, you asked me what I thought," she teased.

[shh_cedric]

Cedric smirked when she suggested Boot. "Guess who my 'Charms expert is'? I watched him walk around the museum the other day and examine things; reminded me a little of watching Flitwick work, back in school, or this professor of mine in Toronto. Boot is so clever, he's bloody scary, even if he seems a bit out to lunch, you know? I think it's just that his brain is so far ahead of the rest of us earthbound sort ... " Cedric chuckled.

He listened to her suggestion of half-walls and nodded thoughtfully. "Right now, they're full walls because I've worked with what was already in the building on the first and second floor, and the ground floor for that matter. But I like the idea. I'll talk to somebody about it, see how easy or difficult it would be to do, structurally speaking.

"And as for how people will react." He sighed and plopped down on the corner of his desk. "I'm fairly sure some will react badly, although that may be as much to how things are presented as to what's presented, if you follow. Old, Eighteen-Century attitudes about museums involved seeing them as places to display the quaint and pretty artifacts of the primitives and the ancients. While you'd find British and Continental, and even American artifacts there too, the ways they were each talked about in placards differed. A lot. I'm throwing all of that out. Furthermore, I intend to combine our technology with Muggle technology in the displays. I've spent a lot of time just looking at the ways different modern museums conceptualize their displays. I may be pants at the financial side of things, but I understand the politics and philosophies inherent in museum displays.

"But in short, yes, I'm expecting some dissatisfaction, even some opposition. But in this ..." He tilted his head. "I'm not much of a confrontative person, but in this, I'm prepared to go the mat."

[shh_su]

Su laughed. "Your expert is Terry? That's great! He is brilliant, isn't he? It's a bit funny, though, he goes from bounding around like a big puppy dog to doing all these incredible charms." She grinned at Cedric over her tea. "I overhead the bartender in the Five Alarm the other day. He said that Terry's son got ahold of a wand in his apartment once, and now his coffee table licks people. Can you imagine?"

She nodded. "I don't know anything about construction, so I'm not sure if it's even possible. If it's not too much trouble, though, it could be quite effective."

As she listened to Cedric, Su tucked her legs underneath her. "You're ahead of me, then. I know a bit about art, but I'm clueless about the politics and such. I suspect your skills are the most useful in a museum director, although if you need a curator down the road, you know where to find me." She grinned to show she was only joking. Mostly.

And then Su yawned, hugely. "Sorry, you're not boring me at all, but it's getting a bit late. I should probably head home soon."

[shh_cedric]

Cedric nearly spit tea through his nose. "His table licks his guests?" He burst out laughing. "Sounds like his son has a bit of a talent for Transfigurations, however improperly that one took." He wondered if he should offer to come and take a look at Terry's table, see if he could fix it, but he wasn't sure if the other man would be offended. "But yeah, it wouldn't surprise me with Terry as a father. He's a powerful wizard, however puppy-doggish he might be."

At her offer to curate, he nodded. He wasn't sure how serious she was, but he might have need of that in the future. If things went well with Lestrange's fellowship, he might even have the money for it. He smiled at her yawn. "Yes, it is rather late. Let me show you out, all right? But I'm glad you came by. It's helpful, and you will go on my List ... sort of like my little black book." He laughed and stood, gesturing her out the door.

[shh_su]

Su slipped into her coat and followed Cedric to the door, pleased both to have seen the museum and to have reconnected with an old Hogwarts friend. "Thank you for showing me around. Let me know if you need any help, yeah?" Once outside, she waved at Cedric, still standing in the doorway, before Apparating home.