Open Sharing History

[Lillian Sword]

Lillian wasn’t sure how to deal with this. With a classroom full of children she was confident and self-assured; with one child, alone . . . Lillian genuinely liked her nephew; Arthur was an intelligent, curious boy, qualities she shared and appreciated. But she was accustomed to seeing him perhaps a couple of times a year. Now, during this holidays he would be living with her, and then he’d be at Hogwarts. Lillian had the feeling they’d need to get to know each other very quickly, if Samara’s plan to give him someone to trust at Hogwarts was to work.

To that end, and knowing that he shared her interest in history, she’d decided to take him to the museum. While Te Papa was a muggle museum, in her opinion that didn’t make it any less of a valuable source. And if Arthur wanted to know more about the magical side of what they saw, he needed only ask her. She turned to him as they walked in through the glass doors at the entrance. “What would you like to look at first?”

 

[Arthur Sword]

Arthur wasn’t sure about any of this. It would definitely be helpful to have someone at school who cared about him, but was it worth moving to a whole new country, with no one else he knew around him? Everything was scary and new right now, though he supposed it would hardly have been less scary and new at the other Hogwarts. Only Mum seemed sure about this, and her enthusiasms were often bright and brief. Aunt Lillian was brave, and she knew how to deal with jokes about her name, so hopefully he wouldn’t get bullied about that with her around. But also he barely knew her; she’d always come around for Christmas, and sometimes for other events, but she was basically a strange, awkward adult.

Arthur looked around curiously as he followed her into the museum. His tastes tended more towards the strange and obscure than the kinds of things that mainstream museums had, but he supposed in a new country everything was strange to him. Really, he wanted to look at everything, but Aunt Lillian had sensibly asked what first, which was a much easier question. "Let's start with the New Zealand history stuff," he said.

 

[Lillian Sword]

Lillian smiled at her nephew; she'd suspected he would want to learn more about the country he'd moved to. She certainly had, though that was years ago now. It was why she had taken him here. "Most of what's here is New Zealand history," she told him. "From the natural history - they have an earthquake exhibition, a colossal squid, a native bush walk downstairs - to the ancient Māori, European colonisation and the Treaty of Waitangi, to the World Wars and some of the more recent history. I'd recommend starting with the Māori, on the top floor, and working our way downwards." Lillian began making her way towards the lift, slowly, giving Arthur time to speak up if he had other ideas - though they were at least likely to go upstairs anyway.

 

[Arthur Sword]

Arthur listened as Aunt Lillian talked, beginning to suspect she didn't really know how to turn off her history teacher mode. But it was useful information, and he did genuinely want to know the things she could tell him, so that wasn't a problem. His attention was caught by the mention of the colossal squid - now, that sounded like a strange curiosity. "What's the Treaty of Wai-tangi?" he asked, struggling to pronounce the unfamiliar word. He hesitated as Lillian pressed the button for the lift. "That sounds like a good plan, but can we drop by the colossal squid first?"

 

[Lillian Sword]

"Waitangi," Lillian corrected gently, although Arthur had done rather well considering his lack of familiarity with the language. "The treaty between the British and the Māori signed in 1840, intended to formally give Māori people the rights of British subjects. It . . . didn't exactly work." There was, of course, plenty more she could say on the topic; it was a complicated issue that had continuing consequences to this day - but that would be more than Arthur wanted to get into, at least right now. She was a little surprised by Arthur's request, but nodded and pushed the button for the first floor when the lift arrived.

 

[Arthur Sword]

Arthur nodded attentively at Lillian's explanation, getting the impression that there was a lot she'd decided not to say. He should do some research on this later; he was sure it would be complicated, and complication interested him. Not to mention he felt he should have a decent grasp of the history of the country he was going to be living in now. The lift dinged, distracting him from his thoughts, and he followed Lillian through a nature exhibit. Lots of skeletons (those could be interesting, too), lots of birds. But it was the squid he was really curious about, and here it was. Arthur circled the giant tank it was preserved in, fascinated by the bloated, alien form. "Wow," he murmured.

 

[Finn Madison]

Te Papa had been on Finn's list of places he wanted to go for what felt like forever. He had never been to such a big museum in his life before, and had always wanted to see what was on offer there. They had never made it before, until now. Finn didn't know quite what Mum was feeling, but he could tell she was sad about her last child heading away to Hogwarts. Finn didn't really know why though, Mum would be there as well, and Odette was still at home, so she wouldn't ever be alone. He wasn't complaining though, since Mum's sentimentality meant he got to do stuff like this. Te Papa was amazing, and Finn was loving looking around the exhibits and experiencing so much history and science. He approached another boy eyeing the squid, one of the things Finn had been the most keen to see. Even as bloated and distorted as it was now, it was amazing to imagine something so big and powerful swimming the oceans for so many years. Amazing. He nodded in agreement at the boy's comment, peering at the squid in wonder. "It's so big..."

 

[Arthur Sword]

Arthur jumped as a voice came from beside him, looking around to see a boy around his age. He’d been too engrossed by the squid to notice much of anything else, but now he saw that Lillian had wandered away to look at some big weird bird skeletons. That wasn’t too surprising, she hadn’t seemed terribly enthusiastic about the squid, but Arthur was pleased to have someone to talk to. He smiled cheerfully at the boy. “Yeah, isn’t it! And to think we know so little about these things . . .”

 

[Finn Madison]

Finn looked up from the squid to see who had spoken to him, greeting the boy's smile with a small one of his own. "We barely understand them, and they're just... out there, swimming around." Finn said, looking back at the enormous cephalopod in front of them. "Makes you wonder what else is out there that we don't understand." Finn knew better than to say more than that, but thinking about muggles going about their entire lives with no idea about the magical world made Finn wonder if there were other societies living even more secretively within his own.

 

[Arthur Sword]

“I know!” Arthur agreed, pleased and a little surprised to find someone who understood. “I’m sure there’s heaps. Like, did you know they’re still discovering new species of beetles? They were just out there, doing their beetly thing, but no one knew about them. So there could be all sorts of interesting things we just don’t know about yet.” Arthur’s mind turned to magic, to all the magical species muggles had no idea existed outside of mythology. There were beings and phenomena that were myths to wizards too, but how could they truly say for sure that they didn’t exist?

 

[Finn Madison]

Finn listened, grinning slightly as the other boy described a new species of beetle. "That's so cool." Finn said dreamily, wondering what a new kind of beetle would even look like. What kind of beetle could be out there that people hadn't even thought of yet? "Do you ever wonder what the creatures we've never discovered look like? There could be anything out there."