Harry Potter and the Laundry Room

This is a translation of my work Гаррі Поттер і пральна кімната

This work is on АО3

A mini sketch — short, silly, and without chapters.

Harry had never suspected he’d end up in a real secret room of Hogwarts — not until the moment he took the wrong door after serving detention in the Potions classroom.
He wandered the entire castle during curfew with a bottle of laundry detergent in hand.

“This robe was supposed to smell like burn balm potion,” Harry muttered, holding Snape’s robe, which he had accidentally (really!) smeared with toad slime. “Now it smells like the North Sea after a mermaid riot… If Snape sees it, I’ll wake up as a slug in a jar.”

He opened the first door he saw in the dungeons, thinking it was a cleaning supply closet.
Instead, he found himself… in a damp room where glowing slogans shimmered across the walls:

• “Dignity is in cleanliness!”
• “Clean robes, spotless reputation!”
• “Don’t mix underwear with robes — it’s against etiquette!”
• “Charms are great, but laundry cycles are better!”
• “If you can’t sort laundry, you don’t deserve a wand!”
• “Stop blaming the house-elves — they’ve been on strike since 1884!”
• “Slytherin shines not just with ambition — but also with cleanliness!”
• “Dirt on your robes is a stain on your bloodline!”
• “Use Lavaso wisely — and without explosions!”
• “Slytherin: not your messy cousin!”

“Where do you think you are?” came a voice.

Harry turned around — Draco Malfoy stood there with a laundry basket, holding premium conditioner for black robes.

“You… do your own laundry?” Harry asked, trying not to laugh.

“What, did you think our robes just shine on their own, Potter? We’re not savages like Gryffindor,” Draco snapped.

From behind a cabinet, Pansy Parkinson peeked out, holding a bottle of Whitening Potion with Edelweiss.

“Who left Kraken socks in the wash again?! They’ve eaten my delicates!”

“Wasn’t me,” said Neville immediately — he was also there for some reason, holding a robe that now had three sleeves.

Just then the door slammed open and Snape walked in, sniffed the air, and grimaced:

“Harry Potter… The Slytherin laundry room — the heart of house pride. And you’ve polluted it with cheap MuggleMart detergent?”

“It has a… Dragon Lemon scent,” Harry offered weakly.

Snape only sighed, took his robe from Harry, tossed it into the washer, and muttered:

“Lavaso.”

The machine rumbled to life.

“I expect all of you gone in an hour. Except you, Potter.
You’ll stay and learn to wash robes properly. No bubbles.”

The End.
Moral: Even at Hogwarts, someone has to do the laundry — and it’s definitely not the house-elves.