A/N: This is the Seeker from Montrose Magpies writing for QLFC Round 7.

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

Thanks to my team for looking through it!

Word Count: 969 (+1 for the title)

Disclaimer: I have no intentions of making money from this story, so all the recognisable stuff belongs to J.K. Rowling.

Hope

"What did you bring me today?" Isobel says as, emerging from the kitchen, she notices the big box in her husband's hands. They've been married for some ten odd months now, and though Robert doesn't make much from the job he has at the church, he still likes to bring her little gifts.

Isobel doesn't like him spending money on unnecessary trinkets, but whenever she voices that, Robert's face falls, and that's more unbearable than having less money to make by with.

But the box today is too big to hold a trinket, and Isobel's curious.

"It's a telephone," he says, his voice housing a rare excitement that's catching, and a smile breaks out on Isobel's face even though she doesn't know what a telephone is in the first place. And Isobel hasn't told him about her magical origins yet, even though the cover is getting more difficult to maintain with each passing day.

Her gaze turns to the small bump hidden under her dress. She'll have to tell Robert soon.

The man in question speaks again, which draws Isobel out of her thoughts. "It's one of the newest inventions and is in trend nowadays. They say our voices can travel long distances if we use this!"

Isobel thinks it sounds like a Patronus message spell but isn't certain. The good part is that even Robert doesn't seem too sure about this new thing.

"Really?" she asks, urging her husband to speak again.

"Yes," Robert breathes out. "They said we can even talk to someone who's at the church without even leaving our living room!"

With this, he places the box down, and for a man who throws a fit over lint on his shirt, he flops down carelessly on the floor. "They wanted to send someone to set it up," Robert continues as he starts to open the box, and then looks up at Isobel. The woman raises an eyebrow at him. "I… uh, I might have said we know how to use this thing — it's just a jumble of wires and metal, isn't it?"

Isobel presses her lips together. It's almost sweet how Robert doesn't want any other person taking away from the little time the two of them have together after Robert comes home, but she's not really impressed. Especially since she does not even know what jumble of wires and metal means.

The man fishes through the box and pulls out a small book, looking sheepish. "There's a manual, too!"

"Well," Isobel says, "I'm not helping you with this, then!" She points to the manual. "Any help you need, get it from that book."

With that, she turns around and marches down the little space they call the hall and into the kitchen to get back to the vegetables she had been chopping for dinner.

She ignores the little protests that come from Robert every five minutes and tries to keep her focus on making the soup. But each time she thinks she's slipped away from her thoughts, her mind berates her about how she cannot fool herself, insisting that the true reason she's left Robert alone in the living room along with that box is that she doesn't know the first thing about whatever is in it.

She thinks of her elm-and-unicorn-hair wand stowed away in the little trunk that keeps all of her items from the world she left behind, thinks of her family and how they disowned her for falling in love with a Muggle, thinks of what will happen once her past and her present collide.

It is Robert's loud cry of, "I give up!" that stops her train of thoughts, and she can't help it — she turns off the stove and marches back to where her husband is sitting, staring at a weird thing, wire somehow wrapped around his middle.

As Isobel sits down next to it, she wonders how much use she would be with the thing, but watching the frown that has replaced the initial excitement on Robert's face, she decides that it doesn't matter. Regardless of how annoying it can be when he splurges on gifts that they don't need rather than focusing on what they do, she loves him and doesn't like to see him disappointed.

She takes Robert's hand in hers and gives it a squeeze. "I don't think this little thing can win against us."

Robert looks back at her and smiles. "Of course not, love."

Isobel takes the book from his hands and starts leafing through it. She doesn't understand more than half the words, but Robert helps her decipher it, no questions asked. Together, they learn through the little book, and three tough hours later — dinner long forgotten and cold — they think they have it down.

Robert traces the digits written on the back of the book. "The shopkeeper said to 'dial' this to check if the 'telephone' works."

Isobel sighs, then smiles tiredly at him. "I have a feeling it will."

It takes them longer than it should to figure out how exactly to dial, cries of, "It's a two after six and not three!" and "You missed the one!" ringing through the small living room, but they eventually make it through the whole string of numbers.

They press close together, somehow managing to fit two ears in the space meant for one, and the long trinnn… trinnn… is like music to their ears.

"Hello —"

Isobel pulls back, letting Robert do the conversation part. As she picks herself up from the floor where they're still sitting, hope blooms in her chest. If a Muggle and a Witch can learn how to make a Muggle device — a telephone — work together, then maybe they can make this mixed marriage of mundane and magic work together, too.