Basement: Laundry Room

[Wilber Winterbottom]

Ever wonder where your dirty underpants wind up? Just down the corridor, not terribly far from the staircase to the kitchen, the door to the laundry room can be found. What you will find in this room will, likely, not be a surprise. Within are no Muggle washing machines or dryers. Instead, front and centre, are large tubs with accompanying wash boards and sticks. A bizarre system of clothes lines fill the back of the room, beside which tables and large hampers await.

If you happen to wind up here on your House's laundry day, you will see your clothes -- hopefully labelled -- and the clothes of your fellow housemates being washed and dried by a team of house-elves. It is not uncommon to hear them bickering with each other or joining together in a motivational song to help make the job get completed quicker. First the clothes are scrubbed squeaky clean with soap and steaming hot water. They are next hung to dry and then neatly stacked on one of the large tables to be folded and placed back in the hamper to be returned to their owners.

Students are always welcome to be proactive and do their own laundry or at least lend the house-elves a hand. There sure is a lot of laundry to do!

[sweetpinkpixie]

Diamond crouched low in the dimly lit laundry room, her fingers expertly sifting through a mountain of clothes that had SOMEHOW tumbled out of the knocked over basket on the ground nearby. left carelessly tossed into the mismatched piles. The sloshing of water as the enchanted tubs self washed the latest load of laundry was a steady backdrop in her quest, but she really could have used a radio on her to play her favorite WWN musical channel. However, that would be counterproductive to the art of subtlety in her search, something she felt she had perfected over the terms. After all, no one expected a teenage girl like herself to be rummaging through the dirty laundry of others, and that was exactly why it worked. Duh.

A stray sock — hers, most likely — slipped through her fingers as she pushed it aside. Socks were for house elves, not diamonds. Oh no no no, she was here for the other things: the forgotten galleons, sickles, and knuts that people always seemed to leave behind in their pockets. It wasn’t much, but when you showed some patience scrounging for every spare coin you came across, it added up. She grabbed a jumper shirt from the top of a heap and turned it inside out. Jackpot. A few coins spilled out, jingling softly as they hit the cold stone floor. Diamond grinned and scooped them up before any wandering house elf could notice as they loaded and unloaded another tub of Hufflepuffs' wash.

But it wasn’t just the money that interested her. Oh no no no, Diamond had a sixth sense for secrets, for little whispers that could be turned into explosive stories for her column in The Quill. A lipstick-stained tissue, a forgotten letter or torn page from a personal journal crumpled in the back pocket of a pair of trousers, the faintest trace of perfume or cologne on a scarf, gross looking spots and stains, an bit of jewelry with an engraving, — these were the clues she lived for. She was certain that someone (hopefully someoneS) had slipped up, left something incriminating behind, and she was going to find it.

And if she couldn't find it then there was always fabrication.

Returning her attention to the pile of Slytherin laundry, so the Gryffindor had deducted upon casting aside 5 or so emerald and silver striped ties, she revealed a small, folded piece of paper tucked into the inner pocket of a set of robes. Her pulse quickened as she unfolded it, scanning the hastily written note. "Perfect," she murmured with a victorious but vicious smile, slipping the note into the pocket of her robes before seamlessly resuming her search.