Hermione definitely wasn't used to it as she was the cherished only daughter of mildly affluent parents. While they didn't have any servants, her Mum did have a maid service that came in once a week to clean the house and her Dad got a yard service to come mow the lawns and trim the hedges, driveway and walkways. Her Mum did all the cooking unless her Dad wanted to barbeque or they ordered out. All Hermione had ever had to do along that line was maybe throw together a sandwich or cut up a bowl of fruit and pick up the clutter in her room.
Not even at Hogwarts had she been exposed to real house cleaning or manual labor. Any detention she'd incurred in previous years had been spent helping a Professor grade the homework of lower years or aiding Madam Pince in tending to the Library. Well, except for the Forest of Death one and that was more Harry's fault than anyone's. If he hadn't gotten them caught by forgetting his cloak, Professor McGonagal wouldn't have given the detention at all. But he had and so she'd to punish all of them equally. But even that detention hadn't been manual labor. All she'd done was walk alongside Neville and Hagrid.
It further surprised them to discover Argus, the crotchety squib caretaker of the Castle, actually liked Harry personally. He claimed to feel sympathy for him for all he had been forced to deal with as a student here, which none of them believed. He was just a mean-spirited old man jealous of the students for having the gift of magic when he didn't. It never occurred to them to wonder how he could be here at the Castle if he wasn't possessed of magic himself. Though all three of them knew the Castle wasn't visible to those not blessed to have magic of their own.
But because of his jealousy, he made their detentions with him as nasty and hard as he possibly could. And no matter what chore he assigned them to do, he always complained about the level of work they did on it. Telling them how Harry was much better at the work than they were and sneering at them for thinking they were better than he was in any way. Luckily, the girls only got detentions with him when the elves and Hagrid were too busy to supervise it.
Sometimes though they all had a detention with the House Elves whom all three knew were very fond of Harry Potter. He had saved Dobby from a very cruel Master and made certain Winky also got saved when her former master set her free for something outside of her control. Harry had come to the kitchens as often as he could when Winky had first been released from service to her old Masters nd Dobby had told him of her plight. He had spent a lot of time talking to her and helping her learn to deal with her new status as a free elf. As a result both Winky and Dobby adored Harry Potter and as they loved him, the other elves did as well. Winky still wasn't happy being a free-elf but at least she was willing to live with it.
At first, the trio hadn't been worried about detentions with the elves. They'd thought their time with them would be a relaxing as all three knew House Elves weren't allowed to do anything that might cause harm to their human masters. And all humans were the masters of elves. So they thought they'd us the time to plot their revenge on Harry and a way to get themselves back in good flavor with their classmates and teachers. They were wrong.
The elves made it clear they saw them as bad children. Bad children who needed to be punished. They actually made them clean rooms in the Castle no one ever used or visited in years. Ron told them that's what Argus had him doing too. They didn't even know where the rooms actually were because the elves would hand them the cleaning products they needed and then pop them to the filthy room and leave them there to do the work. Without their wands! And since none of them could do wandless magic, that meant they had to clean it the muggle way.
Ron had actually tried to walk away from it the first time they'd done it to him, only to find both the door and the window were locked and wouldn't unlock with any unlocking spell he knew. Not that, without his wand, he could do any of the unlocking spells he knew of. Nor could he manually unlock the room they'd taken him to. There literally wasn't a lock on the door or window he could see and therefore touch to unlock.
Nor did they work together to clean one specific room. Each teen was taken to a different room and left there alone to do the work. They'd only be allowed to leave when the time expired or the room was clean and the elf would pop back to pick them up and return them to the hall outside of the kitchens. And if it was close to curfew where they wouldn't make it back to the tower on time, how was that the fault of the elves? If Filch was standing there waiting with watch in hand, and followed them on their way to the tower making sure they didn't dare to run for it or venture into the secret passages to save time; Again. How was that their fault? If someone, Professor Snape, intercepted them on their hurried walk back to their Tower, again how was that the fault of the elves or the custodian? Needless to say they were racking up a lot of detentions for being out after curfew. And since they didn't have the benefit of Harry's map or cloak any more there was nothing they could do to avoid them.
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