~Written for the QLFC, Season 5, Round 7~

Team: Wigtown Wanderers

Position: Seeker

Prompt: Write about a Pureblood witch or wizard marrying a Muggle and learning how to use everyday Muggle technology like toasters, telephones or TVs.

Title: Scrambled

Word Count: ~1200

Beta(s): CUtopia, RawMateriel, DinoDina

Chapter 6: Scrambled

There were many things he'd discovered in the past months.

That he liked the colour green more than any other imaginable. Not any kind of green either, but a bright, amused, slightly sparkling green that darkened just a little with accompanying laughter.

He'd discovered that he liked cookie dough ice-cream far more than the more classical flavours, and that Fortescue's certainly trumped all other parlours in the entirety of Britain, if not the whole world.

He'd learnt how to drive, which was a significant and not unappealing merit to his name, and that reverse parallel parking was surely one of the most difficult skills possible to acquire. Truly dextrous drivers were something akin to possessing of their own particular brand of magic.

And he'd learnt that Muggles were bloody terrifying.

For the entirety of his childhood, Draco Malfoy had been raised to believe Muggles were beneath him.

They were, really, of course they were.

They didn't possess magic, which was akin to lacking common sense, and they were so populace as to more closely resemble scurrying ants upon a Quidditch pitch than people. Truly, they must breed like rabbits; Draco was sure that witches and wizards weren't capable of producing quite so many offspring. Unless they were a Weasley, perhaps.

Weasleys were definitely the exception.

But despite all of that, and an upbringing that tagged Muggles as little more than unexpectedly cluey apes, Draco was rapidly coming to the realisation that they were… maybe just a little bit incredible. Three months it had taken him. Three months to decide that, when it came to technology, Draco was so far out of his depth as to be upon a different plane of existence entirely.

The kitchen. That was the main challenge. Not the television, for that required only simply understanding of signs and symbols that Draco had long ago committed to memory after first scratching them into his ever-present notebook. Light switches weren't exactly a challenge either; anyone with simple knowledge of a Lumos charm could figure that out. Even the alarm clock his stubborn excuse for a lover had insisted upon retaining responded well enough to a few solid strikes with a sleep-heavy fist.

But the kitchen — that was where the mania truly began.

There was always humming. There was always something whirring, or clicking, or purring like an ominously complacent cat. It didn't matter that the kitchen itself was one of the largest rooms in the house; Draco didn't think it was large enough when he couldn't stand in a single spot without the refrigerator maintaining the capacity to fall upon him.

Three months of marriage hadn't changed that stark terror. Draco doubted it ever would.

"Just turn it down a little bit," a voice murmured from behind him.

Draco twitched. "I can't."

"Yes, you can. It's not that hard, just —"

'I can't."

"Just turn the dial until the hotplate dies down a little."

"I can't just take my hand off —"

"Draco. If you let go of the handle for a second, it's not going to explode."

Draco swallowed. He wasn't scared — or at least not aloud. It was just disconcerting. Fire shouldn't just crackle into existence like that without a wand and enchantment. Not even wandless, wordless magic sparked so easily and with as little explanation. He glared down at the frying pan before him, the mush of eggs rapidly scrambling without his control began to smoke. "If I die, I'm blaming you."

"Of course you will."

"If the house burns down —"

"You can blame that on me, too."

Draco swallowed again. The eggs were really smoking, and that was… definitely bad. Not a week prior, upon his last attempt to cook in their disastrous excuse for a kitchen, the fire alarm had sparked to attention and nearly wailed the flat down. Draco had heard ringing in his ears for a whole three days afterwards, he would swear.

Slowly, so slowly that his hand felt like it almost creaked on the frying pan's handle, he loosened his grip. Just one hand. Only one, and then he was snatching at the dial for the stovetop with the speed only a Seeker in the throes of desperation could manage.

The hotplate dimmed. The smoking dissipated. Could Draco breathe again? It was debateable.

A bubble of laughter sounded behind him, moments before the feeling of arms wrapping around his waist almost bereft him of his breath entirely. "I'm very proud of you," she said.

"Don't belittle me?" Draco said, pursing his lips as he jiggled the gelatinous mass of eggs around their pan.

"I'm not belittling. I'm praising."

"It sounds an awful lot like belittling."

"You've come a long way, Draco. I never thought you capable of it."

Draco didn't quite glance over his shoulder, but it was a near thing. When she spoke like that… the warmth, the affection, even laced with teasing, made it nearly impossible not to look. "Well, the threat of never eating a home-cooked meal again is something of a catalyst."

She laughed, breathing warmly into his shoulder. "We agreed that when I married you, I wasn't going to be your slave."

"Or house elf."

"Slave," she repeated for emphasis. "Though I might not have let you starve, precisely."

"That's comforting to hear."

The scent of butter and salt, a hint of the chilli she'd thrown into the pan at the beginning 'to taste', she'd said, wafted thickly into the air. Draco almost thought that it might be worth it to brave the stovetop to be the sole person responsible for that smell. It made him oddly proud of himself.

"I think that's just about done," she murmured into his shoulder.

"You can tell."

"Draco, you're talking to a trained chef."

Draco grunted, levering the frying pan off the hotplate. "A chef who'd let her husband starve to death."

"I thought we'd established I wouldn't let that happen," she laughed.

It was such a warm sound. Loving. As rich as the butter and salt, and as blessedly welcome as music to his ears. For a moment, just a moment, Draco forgot about the terrors of the kitchen. He forgot that the refrigerator would likely explode, or that the very wiring in the walls could spark alight at any second. Briefly, for a heartbeat, he leant back into her embrace.

Who'd have thought? Who'd have even contemplated that a chance meeting, a comment that was more of a critique, and an accidental display of magic in a favoured restaurant, could lead to this? Certainly not Draco. Certainly not —

The toaster popped, and Draco nearly leapt out of his skin. His eyes snapped open, he bodily flinched, and it was certainly a good thing the frying pan rested firmly upon the bench, for it would surely have smeared scrambled eggs on the floor otherwise.

"Bloody hell."

She laughed. "It's just the —"

"We're getting rid of that thing."

"Draco, it's just —"

"Do you want to give me a heart attack?"

"Toasters are just —"

"Because I swear to Merlin, my nerves can't take any more of this kind of harassment…"

She only laughed. She always laughed. And no matter how sorely Draco was tempted to walk out of the Muggle world and back into the comforting embrace of magic, it was she who always brought him back.