Trust Me // George Weasley

Chapter 1: The Gallery

Every year in June it was the same old story. The streets of London were starting to crowd with tourists from all over the world and they impeded Anna's possibility to get to work on time. It was only eight am and yet, the tourists were already packed together on the streets. Lucky for her, her work was only a ten-minute walk away. Well, usually it was ten minutes, but with all the extra people on the street, it took her fifteen minutes to get to the National Gallery.
Still, Anna couldn't complain. She had a flat, though it was teensy-tiny, in the centre of London, not even half a mile away from her job. She genuinely considered herself lucky. Her flat was on the highest floor above a cafe on Charing Cross Road. There were a total of ten people living in the building spread over three floors. She shared the top floor with one other girl with who she simultaneously shared the bathroom. Anna rarely saw her flatmate but she was a clean person so it was all good.
She squeezed through a German couple, holding a big map and fastened up her pace slightly. She knew they were German because they were both wearing socks in sandals, cargo shorts, had sleek sunglasses on, were covered in sunscreen and of course, their backpacks had small German flags sewn on the sides.
Her working day did not start until half-past eight, but she wanted to grab herself a cup of coffee before she would start her day. The morning sun was already warming up her skin and she couldn't help but wish she had the day off.
But pushing through the doors of the National Gallery snapped her out of the plans she was secretly making in her head about how she would spend a day off. She scanned her pass at the gates and pushed through them.

"Morning, Jen," she greeted one of the guards. Jen granted her with a nod and smile. She had only started working here officially two weeks ago, but she knew everyone and everyone knew her as she had done an internship at the Gallery for eight months. If it were not for her uncle who got her the internship during the last year of her study, she probably would never have gotten a job at the National Gallery. He was co-director of the museum and the one who got her into art in the first place. Again, she had been incredibly lucky.
After completing her bachelor degree in History of Arts a month ago, she got offered to stay as Assistant Art Curator. It was the same function she had when she was an intern, only now she was getting paid for it.
She dropped her bag on her desk and made her way over to the small kitchen they had in the office part of the museum. This was the part where visitors were not allowed to come. There was a room with eight desks, another room with four and then two separate offices for each of the two directors. The canteen for every employee was also in the part of the building.
She grabbed a white cup with little ducks printed on it from the cupboard and poured herself a cup of coffee. They currently had a small team of four curators, including Anna. Then there were Tina and Jason from finances, Jason who was an intern, Jimmy from HR, Gertie, Brad and Oliver from PR and communications, again, Oliver was an intern, their archivist Hank, and of course, Yuni, the conservator. Often one of the four curators would jump in to help Hank or Yuni. They were all quite flexible.
But this was not even everyone at the museum. There were guides, front desk employees, shop employees, all the security guards, and the cleaners. Anna worked closest with Rita, a 36-year old woman with the most passionate love for the famous Sandro Botticelli. Trevor, a 57-year old man with more knowledge of paintings from the 16th and 17th century than anyone else. And Nico, a 67-year old man who had promised her the first day she began her internship that he would not quit his job at the National Gallery until she got to exhibit her own work after she told him that she indeed paints as well.
She got along with Nico best, simply because Nico got along with everyone best. He was that grandpa-figure that took every stray child in and gave them the warmest home ever. Nevertheless, on occasion, he was a direct and blunt person. He told things as they were and no different. She liked it that way. She was pretty sure that he would never stop working at the National Gallery. He had worked there for thirty-five years now and there was not a hair on his head that was even thinking about quitting.