Chapter 11
Laundry
The morning sun was pouring heavily onto Harry's face when he finally rolled over, groaning, the next morning. He had not bothered to pull the curtains the night before and now regretted it as he really wanted to sleep for several more hours. However, once he was awake he did not fall back to sleep easily. He sat up, stiff and uncomfortable after sleeping fully clothed sideways on the bed. He peeled off his clothes and stepped into a quick shower. He emerged several minutes later wearing only a towel and opened the drawer where he had thrown all his clothes that he had purchased several days before. As he looked into the drawer, he let a mild curse word slip past his lips. Laundry! He had nothing clean to wear. He remembered rather belatedly that he had meant to ask Cassie about how to do laundry yesterday. He honestly had no idea how Muggles did the laundry. He remembered watching his aunt Petunia do it when he was very young but he did not understand how it all worked and he certainly could not have asked her (even assuming he cared) as asking questions in the Dursley household was absolutely forbidden.
At Hogwarts, the house-elves took care of all these pesky little details and he was just used to opening up his trunk and finding clean folded robes, uniforms, and socks when he needed them. He supposed that Mrs. Weasley did laundry but that would not help him at all now. He had never watched her do it and anyway it was likely she used magic. However, today there was no help for it. He was going to have to figure it out. As it was, he was going to have to wear dirty clothes today until he could get the others clean.
He seriously thought for a long minute about calling Cassie again. After all, and a rather silly smile crossed his face at this thought, yesterday's phone call had turned out very well. But he remembered how curious she had been about some things. Certainly if he called her and confessed that he had no idea how to do the laundry she would find this even more suspicious. Maybe it would be better if he just experimented a little. It couldn't be that difficult, could it? He gathered up all of the dirty clothes that he had piled in his closet over the last few days and carried them into the living room. He noticed idly that Sir Lionel was back in his frame and snoring quite loudly, probably worn out from the message delivery yesterday. Harry pulled out a phone book that was on the small phone stand and thumbed through it, not quite sure what he was looking for. He found it, though. LAUNDROMAT seemed to be the pertinent heading and, reading quickly through the ads, it seemed like the self-serve laundries were exactly what he needed. He consulted a map that was at the front of the book and found a place that was not terribly far away from his house. He wrote down the address carefully as well as the phone number in case he got lost.
He hurriedly wrote his daily report to Dumbledore, only touching briefly on the fact that he had seen a witch out on the streets. He, again, did not mention meeting with Cassie and, as he had every day since he arrived, he again suppressed the niggling feeling of guilt as he sealed the envelope and stuck on a stamp. He stuck the letter in his pocket along with the now well-used piece of parchment with the house address on it. He took some money out of the bag in the bedroom, a generous amount, but as he had no idea how much it would cost to do laundry he felt that he would be well-served to take plenty. He picked up his trusty wand, letting his fingers play gently over the surface that he knew so well, careful not to accidentally set off any sparks. He was glad that Dumbledore had let him keep the wand. Even though he couldn't use it right now, it brought him some comfort. He tucked it yet again into his waistband and recalled the way that Cassie had touched it through his T-shirt the night before, trying to figure out what it was. He felt heat rising up his neck as he recalled the way she had hugged him. She had felt so good pressed against him that way. She smelled good, too. He had really wanted to hug her back, hard, and just stand there for a while holding her, but that just hadn't been possible.
Trying to shove thoughts of the girl to the back of his mind, he put the clothes into the grocery bags from the night before and fastened them to the grocery cart, realizing again what a good investment he had made. His stomach was definitely in knots as he stood in front of the door and undid the locks. He felt very nervous, today, heading out onto the street again. He automatically checked to make sure his hair was down over the scar and opened the door. He moved as quickly as possible getting down the steps. He felt most vulnerable there for some reason, before the house disappeared again and he could blend in with people walking by on the streets. The doorbell called out a farewell and a warning that he should hurry back before Harry stepped off the bottom stair and the house folded in on itself again and was gone.
It took Harry about 30 minutes to find the Laundromat. He got lost two times and had to ask directions. Once he got there, however, he realized that in the future, it would probably only be about a 10 minute walk from his place. That was good. The Laundromat was practically empty, which made him happy as he wanted to make a fool of himself in front of as few people as possible. He looked carefully around at the signs and the various displays along the walls, hoping that he could get some idea from them what he was supposed to do. The signs were generally unhelpful, saying things like "Do not leave clothes unattended" and "No dying."
Sighing, he approached a woman who was folding laundry at a table. She looked kind although she was slightly frazzled as she had one baby fussing in a nearby stroller and a toddler who kept trying to escape out the front door.
"Excuse me," Harry said. She looked up at him and smiled briefly.
"Yes."
"I hate to sound stupid," he continued, "but I really have no clue how to do this. Could you give me some pointers?"
"Um, sure." She looked kind of surprised at his question. He supposed that it really was rather unusual to be as old as he was and have no idea how to do something as ridiculously basic as getting clean clothes from dirty, but he smiled bravely, trying to bluff his way through. He grabbed the toddler by the arm as he made yet another attempted escape in order to help the woman out a little bit and she smiled a little more warmly at him.
"First, you need to make sure you sort the clothes by color: whites, darks, lights, etc." Harry must have looked very confused at this statement because she said, "You really don't have a clue about this, do you?" He shook his head, feeling like a fool. "Well, come on, then, I guess I better walk you through the whole thing." Forty-five minutes later, she helped him load the last of his T-shirts into one of the big dryers and throw in a fabric softening sheet on top of them. "I've got to run, Harry. Will you be alright?" Harry looked down at the little girl sleeping in his arms. She had pale blonde hair framing a really pretty face. Harry couldn't help but think of Cassie and her beautiful hair. He absolutely loved her hair. It was long and silky and it smelled like sunshine. Pulling himself back to the present, he walked over to the stroller. He had tried to help the woman as much as possible in exchange for all of her help with his laundry and had wound up holding the fussing baby for a few minutes as she had finished up the last of her folding. The baby had fallen asleep on his lap and he decided that kids really weren't so bad. He figured Cassie would approve.
"Thanks for all the help, ma'am." He handed the baby back to the woman, grateful that he had asked her. She had helped him buy the soap and the softener sheets, sort the clothes, get them washed, and then loaded in the dryer. It had been fairly easy, really, once he understood the concept, and he felt confident that he could do it himself next time. He had assured her that he could fold his clothes without too much problem, although she had told him that if he remembered to pull out the things as they dried they would be much less wrinkled than if he just left them all in there together. She left, with her little boy dragging behind her calling out, "'Arry, mommy! I wants 'Arry." He smiled to himself as he watched them head down the street. The little boy had liked him quite a bit and they had played hide and seek what felt like 50 times as he had waited for his clothes to wash.
He had the place to himself for about five minutes before a rather frail-looking gentleman walked in with a small load of clothes. Harry watched as he started the load in one of the washers and then sat down at one of the long folding tables. The man pulled out a deck of playing cards and sorted them into various little piles. Harry was positive he was playing some sort of game. After a few moments, he found himself drifting over to the man and watching. The man seemed a little surprised, just as the woman had, that Harry had no idea how to do something as easy as play Solitaire but he showed him the basics. Harry watched carefully and learned, thinking that this was something he could do back at the house to try to wile away the long hours waiting for Dumbledore to decide that it was time for him to go back to fight.
After folding all of his clothes and piling them again on the cart, Harry stepped back out into the warm sunshine, blinking a little at the brightness after the subdued lighting in the little Laundromat. He would have to find a drug store and buy a deck of cards. He thought that he would show Ron how to play this game with his exploding snap cards when they had time for such things again. Harry imagined that it would be much more exciting if there was a chance that if he lost, the cards would blow up in disgust. He laughed softly under his breath, and started heading back home.