"I've missed ya, Mum," he replied good-naturedly, teasingly tousling her shoulder-length red hair much the way she often did to him. "Keep Dad out of trouble, won't you?"
"Of course!" she grinned, hugging him once more and then stepping back while her husband embraced his son. "Ready to go, Arthur?" she asked him, picking up her bag and handing his to him.
"Ready. Goodbye, Charlie!" Arthur grinned at him, then reached for a handful of floo powder and threw it into the fireplace. As the flames turned green, he stepped into it while saying easily, "The Burrow!" and was gone.
Molly gave one last loving kiss to her son before following. "The Burrow!"
She shook ash from her robes in disgust as she stepped from the fireplace. "Oh, yuck, Arthur, we need to clean this again..." She trailed off as she realised her husband was no longer in the room with her. "Now, where on earth?" she murmured, setting her bag down and beginning to explore the house.
She entered the kitchen, which was silent, and the dining room as well. "Arthur?" she called, then raised her voice slightly in pitch. "Ginny?"
No response.
She wandered into Ginny's room--empty, and the bed, made perfectly. She patted a corner of the smoothed, well-used quilt and smiled in pride. Maybe her little girl was finally growing up--she hated to make her bed, and Molly had to remind her constantly. Finally she was beginning to obey.
Still no Ginny. A slight frown settled on her only lightly aging features. "Now, where could that girl be?" she muttered aloud. "Arthur? Ginny, where are you? Come greet your mum!" She was interrupted by her husband's hoarse shout back in the living room. "Molly!"
She rushed into the room. "Yes, dear, what is i--oh, my God..." A pale and shaking Arthur was pointing to the grandfather clock, where her attention had been directed immediately.
MOLLY and ARTHUR: HOME
RON: TRAVELING
BILL, CHARLIE, FRED,
GEORGE, and PERCY: WORK.
And the small wooden hand reading GINNY was splintered into a thousand pieces, completely unreadable.
The hands of the clock broke only for one reason.
Molly's shrill scream
chased the gnomes from the garden.
