All the Hands Except One.
The Weasley Kitchen Clock tells one last story.
--
They might have been getting back from any long trip as they trooped through the door of the Burrow, tired, dirty, silent. But this had not been any journey, but a long and dark one, and they would never be the same again.
Mrs. Weasley sat down at her kitchen table and looked up at her antique grandfather clock, watching all the hands move back from "Mortal Peril" to "Home."
All the hands except one.
The face had faded from the hand labeled "Fred" and the golden arm seemed to have lost some of its shimmer. Mr. Weasley opened the clock front and stopped the ticking pendulum inside, glancing forlornly at the last hand and taking Mrs. Weasley upstairs to get some rest.
The house was deathly silent; not even the ghoul in the attic was making noise. The rest of the remaining Weasley children- Charlie, Percy, George, Ron, and Ginny - lingered in the kitchen, all of them trying to stare everywhere but the clock, its familiar, reassuring ticking gone. Finally, Charlie got up and opened the case again, holding it open to take his younger brother's hand out, gently unscrewing it from the axis on which it had revolved for the past twenty years.
Walking over to George, he placed the golden pointer next to George's tightly clenched fist, leaving the room without another word.
George did not look directly at the clock hand for a moment, but his fingers slowly crept over towards it, tentatively feeling the etched spaces in the cold metal where "Fred" was written . Seeing the tear form in George's eye, the rest of his siblings quietly left the kitchen, leaving him to mourn his twin in peace.
From Wikipedia: Weasley Family Clock
The Weasley family has a special clock in their home, the Burrow, with nine hands, one for every member of the family. Instead of telling the time, the clock reveals the location or status of each family member. The known locations are: Home, School, Work, Travelling, Lost, Hospital, Prison, Mortal Peril. The Weasleys are the only family mentioned to own such a clock. Albus Dumbledore calls the clock "wonderful" and seems impressed by it, suggesting that it's an extremely powerful object.
This fic came to me after a conversation with a friend about how useful having a clock like that would be, and I thought I'd share it with you; for being one of my shorter works, I think it's actually well done.
