Baking? What kind of ridiculous idea was that? Normally, Miranda would have thrown the letter away as soon as she'd opened it, but circumstances had prevented that. Which meant that she was spending her bright, sun-lit afternoon in the kitchen setting food items on fire in a fruitless attempt at making something edible. It was utterly ridiculous.

As for the reason she'd been forced into the task - well, it was a pretty simple and often repeated story that she had. That morning she'd gone with her brother to go bother the Winged horses, something the two of them did quite often, but weren't really supposed to. Miranda was in fact quite positive that the resident Porlock hated them. Anyways, they'd been just about to try and mount a couple of the horses when their parents had appeared. It was, of course, the end of all their plans, and was sure to end with some serious punishment.

Not that punishment tended to bother the Everest children much. They got it so much, on such a regular basis that it was just routine by now, and would be until they got better at not getting caught. Sticking to the rules wasn't an option, so any mention of that would be met with scoffs and eye-rolls.

Unfortunately for Miranda, an owl-delivered letter had arrived moments after they got caught. When her parents ordered her to read it aloud, it made way for a very...annoying punishment, compared to the usual, anyways.

That was why she was now standing in the kitchen, rummaging through old, dust-covered recipe books with an irritated expression plastered to her face. The family house elf, Edymal, had helped her find some possible things to make, but had then scurried off after her parents called him away. So that meant no helpers, because as far as Miranda knew, Cedar was cleaning up dung in one of the pastures. Maybe she had gotten off easily.

But as she struggled to find the easiest recipe, it didn't feel that way. Normally when they were punished together, at least they could chat while working - doing it solo, even if it was easier, was quite possibly even worse.

Finally Miranda decided on one of the recipes - it looked like the easiest out of all the complicated meals she'd delved through before that. But still hard, especially since she had next to no baking skills whatsoever.

She propped the book open on the counter, revealing a large title that read; Chocolate Rainbow Surprise 'Box' Cake. The whole thing looked quite over-the-top, both with colors and the sugar, but hey, who was Miranda to complain? At least all of the ingredients could already be found in the house, and a lot came from pre-made mixes, which substantially decreased her workload. Or so she hoped.

After a few moments of rummaging through the house elf-sized cabinets (the highest ones barely reach Miranda's waist), she successfully unearthed two boxes of cake mix, one white and one black, then prepared them as the instructions on the back said. One annoying step down - many more to go.

"Divide the prepared white cake batter into 4 separate bowls. Use food coloring to create vivid red, yellow, green, and blue batter," she read aloud, then glanced around with a sigh. More bowls that were going to have to be cleaned up afterwards, it would seem. Usually she'd try to find a better, faster way, but knew better than to try and edit something she barely knew how to do in the first place.

At odds to her previously languid manner, Miranda hurriedly banged through a bunch more cupboards, before emerging victorious with four bowls, plus a couple extras just in case, and a large container containing smaller tubes of food coloring. Thanks to her complete lack of baking skills, it didn't even occur to her to check the list of ingredients and necessary items.

"Green," Miranda murmured under her breath as she worked to dye the portions of cake mix. "Blue, red, and yellow. There. Done." She wiped a stray droplet of colour off of her wrist, then leaned over to check the recipe book again.

Argh. More things were needed. She studied the word for a moment. What in the world was a bundt pan, of all things?

"Edymal?" Miranda called, glancing around the room. With a loud crack, the house-elf appeared, wringing his hands and watching her with a comically fierce expression.

"I'm not supposed to help you, mistress," he began. "Surely you understand that..."

"I don't need much. Can you just tell me what a bundt pan is? Then I'll be out of your, um..." Miranda trailed off. House-elves didn't typically have hair, so that expression didn't work.

"If it pleases my mistress," Edymal replied with a long-suffering sigh. The creature scurried out of sight behind a granite island, then returned barely a moment later with a large, circular pan with bumpy sides and a hole in the middle. It looked like some kind of mold to Miranda, and she decided to assume it was one.

While Edymal disappeared again with another loud crack, Miranda poured a tiny bit over a third of the chocolate mix into the pan. She then took up the bottle of red mix and eyed it nervously. The next part of the recipe sounded the hardest so far. Supposedly, she had to spread the scarlet mix thinly over the chocolate layer without letting it spread to the edges of the pan. A daunting task to someone with literally no baking talent.

Inhaling deeply, Miranda lifted the cup and shakily spread a single, uneven layer. When done, she wrinkled her nose and studied it unhappily, but continued to pick up the next colour without saying anything more. There was, after all, no one to hear her complaints over the uneven splotches now that Edymal was gone. Yellow and green soon followed, though neither was any neater. Miranda was by then at least happy that she hadn't done anything worse, even if it wasn't perfect. Nothing had been set on fire, blown up, or vaporized.

Yet.

Cocky from her success so far, Miranda was a bit more careless with the blue icing than she should have been. At first everything seemed to go well. Then the door banged open with a slam, and Miranda jumped, spinning around.

Standing in the open threshold was her father, although for some reason he had blue sludge dripping down his face and onto the floor. It looked disgusting.

"Um, Father? Why is there goop on your face?" Miranda asked, trailing off into silence at the murderous expression on his face.

The man raised a hand to his head and wiped two circles clear, revealing his eyes clearly. They pinned her down with startling force considering they didn't physically do anything. "You happened," he said in a near growl. "Care to explain this...mess?" Her father glared around the kitchen, at the various pots and bowls stacked on the counter, then at the multi-coloured dessert in the middle of it all. He then turned back to her, and she followed his gaze to the now-empty cup in her hands.

Wait...empty? Miranda glanced done, confusion marring her features. A moment ago, the cup had been a third of the way full. Where had all the mix gone. A slow realization dawned on her, and she looked up to meet her father's eyes, still ringed by blue goop. Oh.

"I, uh, was surprised. By you." Miranda could barely speak through her flustered emotions. She was definitely in for it now. "Sorry about the, uh, new face mask. I'm almost done baking, though - I'll clean up after?" She'd meant for her words to be a statement, but in the end it was sounded more like a question.

Her father's expression didn't change at all. Instead her renewed his ferocious expression. "You will complete your punishment. Then you will clean up and head outside to relieve your brother of his work. I will be cleaning myself up, then I will come back to check on you." He leaned closer. "You'd better hurry, or there's going to be repercussions." Miranda's father then stalked off, disappearing around a corner. His mood made her wonder what had happened outside to make him so livid - and of course, her clumsiness hadn't helped a jot.

With a sigh, Miranda turned and set the empty contained down. Her blue layer would have to go unfinished. She quickly poured on another third of the chocolate mix, glancing over her shoulder every little while to check if her father had returned. When the mix was done, she put the whole thing in the oven and set it to 175 degrees Celsius for thirty-five minutes.

"That was horrible," Miranda murmured with a slight shudder, then she moved to clean up all the used bowls, cups and pans.

Fifty minutes later

Miranda set the finished cake in a plastic box that her mother had lent her reluctantly. It was lopsided from the colour job, but hopefully the amount of colored icing and sprinkles she'd thrown on would suffice in appeasing any complaints.

The owls, two white and black Snowys named Winter and Frost, and a Great Horned named King, watched her carefully as she tied the whole thing onto their legs. Hopefully it would reach the Gameskeeper intact. If not, surely no amount of bludgeoning could make it look any worse than it already was, right?

"Keeper of the Grounds and Keys of Hogwarts, alright?" she murmured for the owls, then opened the window and watched the awkwardly struggle out with the heavy package. Now it would be best if she got lost before her parents discovered the missing owls and connected it to her.

Finished Product:

Reducio

Recipe and Image both come from here