You start with two hands, like every clock, but yours swing at random, and you know the information is more pertinent. You don't need twelve different places to be, and what are ones and sixes but numbers? Those numbers never stay the same and a clock in Australia would show completely different numbers. You didn't see the point of that. Numbers were arbitrary.
You could be in Australia, or America, or deep in Russia, and always your hands would point to the same things.
At first, your job was simple. There was Molly and there was Arthur, gold-faced and heavy, clinging to you with weights and pendulums and a dash of magic. They were home, they went to work, they slept, they sometimes travelled. Molly hardly ever looked at you, because she didn't need to.
On days when Arthur worked late, she would pace in front of you until you felt him moving (because it never mattered how far away they were, you always felt them moving), and you moved his hand to Travelling until he made it home. And she would smile and you would be happy. That was why you were made.
Over time, your burden grew heavier. Molly would swell to bursting, and for just a few minutes, you felt her move into Mortal Peril before slipping safely to Hospital. You felt the labor pains, too, the birthing of a new hand for your clock and as the house grew full, you grew heavy with their love.
You had a job to do, and you kept swinging, feeling the nine hands weighing on you, held together with weights and pendulums and a dash of magic. You felt the stoic Bill as he made his way through expectations and into society, and the insatiable curiosity of Charlie, whose hand sat at Travelling so long when you could feeling him pulling away. It was taking all your strength to keep him there, and finally you gave in. When you moved his hand, and Molly noticed, and Charlie still wasn't at the Burrow, she looked at you and you could see her not crying.
"He's home now," she whispered to you. "This isn't his home anymore."
You followed Percy through his straight and narrow growing-up years, and the twins through their antics. Fred and George were rarely Home, and never made a home of anywhere else. They were just at Quidditch or Garden and if you had the power, or Molly asked you to, you would make another place for them. An Up to Something that would usually be true. But it wasn't in your power to decide. So you just held the twins as tight as you could and kept them "Home" as long as you could.
And they went to school. Then they went to work. And they were always Up to Something, although you could never put them there.
Then he came back, and it didn't matter where anyone went. Their hands on your face were all dead weights that clung to Mortal Peril like it was some sort of lifeline. You wanted to move them. You wished you could. But only for moments, when they Apparated and were nothing, or when they were on the Hogwarts Express, would they pull away and travel. But they travelled between Mortal Peril and Mortal Peril, and you just didn't see the point.
Molly took to carrying you everywhere. She studied you because they were all gone. Bill and Charlie were on their own. Percy's hand was loose and threatening to fall off of you every day. Fred and George had their own lives and they worked, but they were always in Mortal Peril and they weren't up to anything anymore so you didn't even feel conflicted.
If you were honest, you didn't know where Ron was. You just felt his danger in your weights, and you felt him swinging on his pendulum and you felt just a dash of magic from him. Just a dash, because that was all he had left. And he swung from mortal peril to mortal peril and nothing you or Molly did could keep him safe.
Ginny's hand should say School. For seven years, the children would pass from Home to Travelling to School and stay there in safety until they were travelling again. But she wasn't safe. She was at school… in mortal peril.
The first time you left the Burrow after Molly and Arthur had moved there, you went to an overcrowded home that didn't smell right. There you stayed with Molly continually, moving from room to room, because she never left the house either. You heard her fretting. You heard her debating whether Ginny should stay at school. You watched as Ginny moved into that strange place, but it wasn't enough to save her from Mortal Peril.
"Molly," Arthur said one day when the weight was becoming too much. "Molly, it's time to go. Fred just got hold of me."
"What was that, Arthur?" She hadn't been listening. You could tell.
"I said, Fred just sent word that Harry, Ron, and Hermione are back at Hogwarts. We're fighting."
"It's time! Oh Merlin, it's time!" She threw her hands in the air and dropped you, and you shattered on the floor.
Molly noticed, and her magic, which was so much more than the dash it used to be, put you back together and hung you on the wall. But it wasn't enough to lift your burden; the names of every Weasley stayed stubbornly attached to Mortal Peril.
She didn't look at you again until you were all in the Burrow and you were back in the familiar scene, on your old hook, feeling lighter. You had had days without her. Days to figure out what to do. Days to figure out the magic. It had to be in you. You were made of weights and pendulums, but also a dash of magic (and the dash became bigger when she fixed you) and it was yours and you needed to use it. And in their absence, you found a way.
You knew they would never be home again. Not really. No place would feel like home. Not Romania or London, and not the Burrow. Especially not 93 Diagon Alley. And so you carved a place beside it, between Home and Garden and far away from Mortal Peril.
"Safe," it said. And there eight Weasley hands rested, and they weren't a burden.
The chaos of coming home died down, and Molly looked at you. Really looked at you. "Merlin," she whispered. "Merlin, how did this happen? Arthur! Arthur come here!"
"What is it?"
And they stood, staring at you, as you held your hands proud.
Eight Weasley hands pointed to Safe. And one Weasley hand you left in the only place it would fit. "He's home now," Molly whispered. Fred Weasley was Home.
Written for Round One of the Finals for the Quidditch Competition, where I was to write about a sentient object. Word count: 1149