Work Text:
When Harry arrived home from the Ministry that evening, he had expected a quiet Friday evening of cuddling with his wife.
He hadn't expected to find her on the floor in the living room, surrounded by boxes and plastic packaging, still wearing her work robes. Hermione didn't look up as she continued staring down at the open booklet in front of her until he cleared his throat and said, "Honey, I'm home."
"What? Oh, hi, Harry. It came today." She gestured vaguely at her surroundings.
"Great!" said Harry excitedly. While neither of them had missed Muggle entertainment while they'd been at Hogwarts, now that they were settled into their adult careers, they'd decided to supplement the wizarding world's woefully inadequate equivalent with the latest line of complete home entertainment systems. They'd set their eyes on a package that included a television, DVD player, and integrated home stereo system, all to be run off a wireless home network, connected through their existing computer.
"Yes," Hermione continued, not nearly as excitedly, "and it would be even better if I could figure out this bloody instruction...book." She almost tore the page as she flipped it.
Harry, feeling that this was the sort of thing men were supposed to be able to figure out (and fearing for the manual's structural integrity) joined her on the floor to take a crack at the recalcitrant machine system. It couldn't be that bad, right?
Wrong. Two hours and numerous breaks for pizza and snacks later, they were just as confused as ever. Hermione, who was certain that she could figure it out either through her Muggle world experience or by reading instructions, was still determinedly searching the Internet for help. Harry, meanwhile, had adopted the "Let's see if these pieces fit together" method, interspersed with, "You know, we could always ask to have it installed..."
"No."
"Just a suggestion."
Finally, he gave up and went into the office to check on her progress. Much to his surprise, there were no instructional texts on the monitor. Instead, all he saw were...
"Badgers, Hermione?"
She jumped. "Don't scare me like that?"
"Badgers?" he asked again, stepping up behind her and placing his hands on her shoulders.
"Er...yes," she admitted, as the curiously hypnotic animated animals bounced in front of them. "I - er - got distracted."
"Right." He chuckled. "Look, we're both lost. Can we please let the professionals do it?" He ignored the snakes on the screen to give her his best pleading look.
She sighed and leaned back into him, tilting her head up. "All right, I suppose that's best. I can watch them and learn how to do it that way. If anything breaks, I'll be able to fix it."
"That's my girl." Harry bent over and kissed the tip of her nose. "Now, as long as you're busy with the - er - badgers, I think I'll go finish that ice cream." He released her and headed out the door.
She was on his tail in a second. "Harry, you really do have a lot to learn about women. Nothing gets between us and our ice cream."
"Not even instruction manuals?"
"Not even badgers."