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Harry stared at the washing machine accusingly. Almost as if sensing his glare, it let out another annoying jingle.
The basket of dirty clothes next to him loomed, intimidating. For a second, he thought about giving up and just asking Mrs. Weasley to clean them for him, but his stubbornness won out. He didn’t even know why the Weasleys had a washing machine (although he could definitely guess), but he could definitely figure out how to operate it.
He thought. He’d spent five minutes standing in front of it already, trying to figure out how to turn it on, but that was neither here nor there. Either way, he’d gotten it on, having flicked random switches until something clicked, and decided not to question what exactly it was running on, given that its cords were very much not plugged into anything.
But clearly he’d done something wrong in the course of turning the thing on, because no matter how hard he pried on the lid, the machine just wouldn’t open.
He squinted at the panel of knobs and switches again, rubbing his eyes. Maybe he needed new glasses. He leaned forward, trying to make out the tiny labels next to the buttons, half laying on top of the machine now. The edge of it dug into his chest awkwardly. It kind of hurt.
Still, no matter how close he put his face to the labels, he couldn’t figure out what they said. The text was tiny and faded, and as Harry slid back off of the machine he noted that the rest of it also looked rather… worn. The bottom of it was stained a yellowish hue, and there was a slightly concerning scratch along its right side.
It was probably fine.
Resigning himself, Harry reached over to flick the first switch. It made an ominous clacking sound, but nothing happened. He tried the lid to the washing machine. It still wouldn’t move.
He flicked a second switch. Tried the lid again. Still nothing. A third. No. The fourth one. He dug his fingers under the lip of the lid, and they caught on something. There was another clicking sound, and then the lid was popping open.
There’d been a latch on it, apparently.
At least it was open now.
Harry peered into the bowels of the washing machine. It was very dark, even with the room lit up, and looked rather deep. He turned back to the basket of clothes.
It would be rather messy to just dump them all in, right? Half of the clothes were inside out, and there was at least one shirt fully crumpled into a ball. He tugged it out from the pile and smoothed it out, then looked around.
The top of the washing machine was a flat surface. He nodded. That would work.
Pulling the lid back down and nearly crushing his fingers, Harry examined the top of the machine again, before laying the shirt down on it with an air of finality. Carefully, he folded it into neat vertical thirds, then again horizontally, making sure all the sections were perfectly even.
He pushed the shirt to a corner of the washing machine and reached back into his basket for another one.
For the next ten minutes, he folded his clothes, neatly enough that he thought even Aunt Petunia might have no choice but to approve. When he finished, there was a towering pile of garments laid on top of the washing machine.
That he now had to get into the washing machine.
He frowned at the pile. It was pretty big, but it was just clothes; they weren’t that heavy. He could probably pick them up.
He slid the stack of neatly folded clothes to the edge of the washing machine, and very carefully lowered them back into the laundry basket. Now, to just get them into the machine.
This time, he got the top open much faster, now knowing to reach for the button under the handle that would free the lid. It only took a few moments longer for him to finally lower the now-folded clothes into the washing machine, and he stepped back with a satisfied huff, looking at the emptied laundry basket.
Now what? Harry wracked his brain, trying to remember. Aunt Petunia had always done his and the rest of the family’s laundry, and didn’t trust him in the laundry room. The last time he’d gone in, she’d shrieked at him for what felt like hours afterward about how they couldn’t afford to replace either of the machines if he exploded them somehow. She’d said something about how much of a waste of water and detergent washing his clothes was, too.
Right—detergent. That was like laundry soap, he thought. He looked around the room, but there were only a few random rags, something that looked vaguely like a drying rack, and a very out-of-place looking bouquet shoved in a corner.
Maybe there was some in the kitchen, then? That seemed to be where Mrs. Weasley kept most of her cleaning supplies. Not that there were a lot of those in the first place. Harry thought of the cabinets in the Dursleys’ house, and of the numerous containers of powders and liquids with labels saying something about squeaky-clean surfaces, no chemical damage, instant results guaranteed. Magic really did seem very convenient, if it let people skip out on figuring out how to use all of that.
Lost in thought, Harry traipsed out of the room, only registering there was someone in front of him when he crashed into them and ended up in a pile on the floor.
“Ow,” he muttered, groping around for his glasses and hoping they hadn’t shattered from their impact with the solid wooden floors. He squinted up at the ambiguously ginger blob now hovering above him.
“HARRY! Are you okay? I thought you’d saw me, mate, I was calling your name!”
“Ron? Is that you?” Harry’s fingers bumped against the familiar scratchy feel of Sellotape edges, and he fumbled to grab onto it, wincing when he realized he’d smudged his fingers over the lenses..
“Of course! Who did you think it was?” probably-Ron yelped, waving his hands around.
Finally managing to get his glasses on, Harry looked up again to find that it was in fact Ron. “Any one of your brothers, maybe. Your hair’s about the only thing I can make out without my glasses.”
“Oh, bugger off.” Ron squinted past Harry, eyes fixing on the doorway he’d just come out of. “Why were you in the scullery, anyway? Pretty much nobody but mum ever goes in there.”
“Uh,” Harry said. If he told the truth, Ron would probably just tell him to let Mrs. Weasley handle it, but he’d already gotten most of the work done, right? It really wouldn’t be that hard to just turn the washing machine on after he put some detergent in. “I was…”
Ron pushed past him to poke his head into the room, then turned back, raising his eyebrows at Harry. “Flowers? Really, mate?”
Harry blinked at him owlishly. “What?”
“Come on, I wouldn’t have said anything even if you’d just kept them in my room, yeah? Though I’d wager we’ve already got enough flowers in the garden.”
“Er—I think you’re misunderstanding something. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just… getting something for Mrs. Weasley.”
Ron looked a bit skeptical, but seemed to accept Harry’s excuse, or at least decide it wasn’t worth arguing further over.
“Anyways,” Harry said, trying to change the subject, “I’m feeling a bit peckish, d’you think your mum would mind if I grabbed something from the kitchen?” Technically that was what he was planning to do. It wasn’t his fault if Ron assumed “something” meant food.
“‘Course not. She’s always going on about how you need to eat more. Did those relatives of yours feed you at all?” Ron began walking toward the kitchen. Harry followed him.
“Bread and cold soup, pretty much. They said they didn’t want me wasting food that could be going to ‘normal, respectable’ children. My cousin, basically.”
Ron looked horrified. “I don’t think I’d survive two days on that! Anyway, there’s still a few muffins from breakfast, help yourself. I’m going to head back up to my room,” he said, turning with a wave and leaving Harry standing in the kitchen.
Harry still wasn’t sure why Ron thought he’d had anything to do with the flowers in the laundry room, or why they were there in the first place, but he guessed it’d managed to work out. There wasn’t anyone else in the kitchen—he thought most of the Weasley siblings were in their own rooms, while Mrs. Weasley was out in the garden. He felt a little bad about rummaging around in the kitchen without anyone else there, but it was just soap; Mrs. Weasley probably wouldn’t miss it too much, right?
There was a container of soap sitting next to the sink. Mrs. Weasley usually used magic to wash the dishes and such, but everyone underage still had to use normal, non-magical means to clean themselves and anything else that might need cleaning. He picked up the container and shuffled back to the scullery.
Briefly, Harry wondered why Ron had seen and fixated on the bouquet when the washing machine—much larger and placed in the center of the room—was still gaping open. Maybe Ron thought it was normal. He probably didn’t know how to use a washing machine. It didn’t matter, anyway, Harry was sure Ron would forget about it before long.
He flipped the lid of the container up and tipped the soap over the open washing machine, waiting until what he thought was a reasonable amount poured out. Then he recapped the container, set it on the floor, and very carefully pulled the lid of the washing machine down, avoiding his fingers this time.
Harry took a step back, hesitating. There was a switch to start the machine, but he wasn’t sure how long he was supposed to run it for. The labels on the knobs hadn’t gotten any clearer—in fact, they seemed to have gotten even blurrier. He squinted and tilted his head, then pulled his glasses off, wiping them on his shirt.
Finally, he decided to dial all the knobs to around the middle, hoping it’d work. His clothes were already fairly worn, anyway, they could probably handle it.
The machine let out a low rumble as it turned on. Harry stood back and just watched it for a moment, slightly wary of the erratic rattle it was emitting. When nothing seemed to happen after a minute or two, Harry nodded to himself and walked out of the scullery, peeking at the kitchen clock. The hand pointed to “time to feed the chickens.” Sure enough, when he glanced out the window, he could see someone moving around in the chicken coop.
Shrugging, Harry trudged back up to Ron’s room, which contained a small alarm clock that showed the actual time: nearly four in the afternoon. Harry resolved himself to check back on his laundry around six—two hours was probably enough time for the machine to run, right?
It was enough time. In fact, it was more than enough time—when he walked back into the scullery, the lid of the washing machine was wide open, and his very wet clothes were scattered all over the floor. Apparently, the washing machine was rather temperamental, and didn’t appreciate being “forgotten about.” Nor did it seem to do its job very well. Harry stared at the oily stain on a t-shirt that had landed on top of the bouquet, still stashed in the corner, and sighed.
He ended up asking Mrs. Weasley to launder his clothes. She looked at the basket he handed her, full of wet, slightly soapy clothes and a few flower petals, and sighed pityingly. Harry winced, but she didn’t ask anything more, and he escaped back upstairs.
(Much, much later, when he realized what she probably assumed had happened, he stared blankly at his half-written Potions essay for so long even Hermione, who’d been fully immersed in her own stack of homework, asked him if he was okay.
When he recounted the story, face flaming, she burst into laughter, nearly knocking over her ink bottle. Harry wanted to throw himself into a washing machine.)