Hermione concentrated as she carefully regulated the incendio spell so that the sugar melted and caramelized just so.
Pushing back her hair and grinning at her success, she moved onto the next dish of dessert and did the same. She was nearly finished; there were only two more that needed torching.
And at the very last moment on the very last cup of custard—
The door crashed open and recoiled loudly against the stone wall. Hermione jumped, accidentally setting alight a bag of flour.
"Sorry!" her visitor called. "Aguamenti!"
Before she could protest, the water was doused, and the flour with it.
"There you go!" her visitor turned to find an upset Hermione with a scowl and crossed arms.
"Harry," she warned, "What have I said about bursting into the kitchen like that?"
"Not to do it if I do not want my dinner burned," Harry recited stiffly. Then he slumped as Hermione turned back on him.
"Now what was so important that you ruined a bag of flour and the last crème brulee?" she asked, gesturing towards her line-up of perfectly identical cups of custard.
Hermione angled herself toward Harry to talk to him properly, but paused as she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.
She whipped back around and cast a spell that immobilized the trespasser.
Ron held up his tied hands in surrender, failing to conceal the spoon in his right hand.
"Ron—" Hermione snarled. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Er—looking for my finger stick?"
"Finger stick?" Hermione repeated in confusion.
"I think he means 'thumb drive'," Harry piped up.
Hermione's expression clouded further. "And just what were you doing with a thumb drive in my kitchen?"
Ron struggled for an answer as the twine around his wrists slowly tightened in Hermione's fury.
"I was trying to get a reading on the broccoli!" he squeaked as he began to lose circulation to his fingers.
In Hermione's peripheral vision, Harry face-palmed in exasperation.
"Ron," Hermione said slowly, struggling not to scream. "Thumb drives are used for storing digital files, not for getting 'a reading on the broccoli' or for bringing into. My. KITCHEN," she shouted, finally giving up.
"What are Weasel and Golden Boy doing in my kitchen?"
Ron gawked and Harry squeaked as Draco Malfoy walked in.
Hermione froze and looked from Malfoy to Ron to Harry and back again, before giving up and collapsing onto a kitchen stool.
"Check the cupboard," she said to no one in particular.
Confused, each of the boys moved to a different cabinet and yanked open a door, only to have a plastic container squirt some kind of oily white liquid onto them.
Ron cursed, spitting out the bit that got in his mouth, Harry pawed at his glasses, and Malfoy cried in outrage over his ruined shirt.
"Later, suckers!" Hermione cackled, illusion melting away to reveal a snickering Fred. George's head popped in through the door.
"And we call that—"
"—A lotion explosion!" they shouted together, slamming the door behind them in their getaway.
Malfoy dropped onto the stool in exasperation, Ron finally pulled his head out from under the sink faucet, and Harry succeeded in wiping off the majority of lotion on his glasses.
"How did you idiots get into my kitchen?" Malfoy snarled.
"House elf," Harry answered.
At the same time, Ron said, "Apparated."
Meeting eyes with the same horrified expression, they quickly clarified to simultaneously plead, "Hermione!"
"Yeah?" their friend yawned, entering through yet another door.
At the sight of her two friends and Malfoy all together in the same room, covered in lotion, she squeaked, turned tail and fled.
Outside the mansion, a certain eccentric girl watched in interest at all the visitors who came running out of Malfoy Manor.
"Must be looking for an escape from the Nargles," she mused, twirling a small charm she'd found labelled "Port key".