The Clock Says 'Mortal Peril'....ooowww my stomach hurts.

[abigailnus]

No: HPFGUIDX 42835

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Richelle Votaw" <rvotaw at i...> wrote:
> Well, I had always thought that maybe the hand would just disappear if they
> were dead.  But then when Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys return to the
> Burrow after the Quidditch game Mrs. Weasley comes running out of the house
> saying "Arthur--I've been so worried--so worried."  "You're all right . . .
> you're alive . . . oh boys . . . " and then proceeds to practically strangle
> Fred and George hugging them.  It sounds like she was passing the time
> reading the Daily Prophet wondering if they were alive, not looking at the
> clock to see.  Which has me a little confused, to say the least.  Anybody
> care to explain?
> 
> Richelle

40168

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned this before, but a few weeks ago Elkins 
posted a very long and interesting post about canon in support of Arthus 
Weasly with Imperius.  At the end of this post she also listed canon in 
support of the Missing Weasly Child theory, and had this to say about the 
famous clock:

<<The Weasley family seems to have been unusually psychologically 
scarred by Voldemort's first rise to power. The entire wizarding 
world is pathological in this regard, true, but the Weasleys strike 
many people as carrying even more emotional baggage about Those Dark 
Times than average wizards. Of Harry's peers, Ron shows the 
strongest aversion to hearing Voldemort's name spoken outright. Of 
course, he is also the only one of Harry's close friends who was 
raised within the wizarding world, so this alone could account for it,
if only there were not so many other indications that the Weasley 
family carries some form of severe yet secret trauma.

Take that clock, for example. That paranoiac grandfather clock in 
the Burrow, the one with the special setting for "mortal peril." Is 
that really a normal thing for wizarding families to have in their 
houses?

Well, maybe it is. Maybe it is. And yet, I notice that when a 
situation arises in which some of her family members might actually 
*be* in mortal peril, Molly doesn't seem to be able to bring herself 
to look at it to find out for sure. When the rest of her family 
returns home from the QWC in Chapter 10, for example, she runs out to 
greet them, practically deranged with relief to see them all safe and 
sound.

"'Arthur -- I've been so worried -- *so worried* --'"

Molly is in quite a state. She is described as "pale" and "strained."
She hasn't dressed. She's still clutching her copy of the _Daily 
Prophet,_ although she lets it fall out of her "limp" hand once she 
has thrown herself into Arthur's arms. In places, she is described 
as if she might even be tottering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

"'You're all right,' Mrs. Weasley muttered distractedly, releasing Mr.
Weasley and staring around at them all with red eyes, 'you're 
alive....Oh *boys*...'"

Why didn't she check the clock?

Don't tell me it's a FLINT. It's not a FLINT. JKR didn't forget 
about the clock, and she didn't want her readers to have forgotten 
about the clock either. She describes the clock again in the *very 
same chapter.* The clock is described in full, with special 
attention paid to that "mortal peril" setting, not *four pages* after 
her description of Molly's near-hysterical relief to see her family 
safely home. And Molly looks at it, too, to see if Arthur is on his 
way home from work yet.

So Molly uses the clock. She uses it on a daily basis. The one time 
she can't bring herself to look at it, apparently, is when someone in 
her family might really be in danger.

This is suggestive. People who have suffered through the agonies of 
knowing that a loved one has become trapped in a dangerous situation 
nearly always describe the worst part about that situation as "not 
knowing for sure." The relatives of those who are "missing in 
action" in times of war, those who are "as yet unaccounted for" when 
there has been some terrible disaster -- these people *always* claim 
that they just want to *know,* that even knowing that their loved one 
had been killed would be far better than the terrible uncertainty. 
Right?

Molly's different, apparently. Why would that be?

Perhaps because that clock has given her bad news before?<<

If you're interested in learning more about either theory I suggest you 
read the rest of the post, #40168, as it does an excellent job of 
summing them up and listing the canon in their support (although I must 
admit to a bias as Elkins mentions a thoery of mine <blush>.)

I think Elkins' explanation works even without the missing Weasly child.  
The Weaslys must have gone through a trying time in the previous war - 
Arthur must have been hard at work in the ministry, Molly having to worry 
about a steadily increasing number of small children (with the exception 
of Ginny, and dependant on definitive evidence on Bill and Charlie's ages, 
it is quite likely that all Weasly children were born during Voldemort's reign 
of terror.)  God knows how many nights she spent watching that clock and 
hoping it wouldn't tell her that someone she loved was in danger.  And now, 
after 14 years of quiet, when all she'd had to think about when watching 
the clock were the Home, Work and School settings, the dark mark suddenly 
reappears.  Is it surprising that she can't quite force herself to check the clock, 
to admit that the dark days may have returned?

Abigail