[HPforGrownups] Re: The Clock Says 'Mortal Peril'....ooowww my stomach hurts.

[yr awen]

No: HPFGUIDX 42841

Abigail wrote:


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:<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Ahh, thank you for pointing that out to us new-type people :-) I went back and devoured Elkins' post (very good with ketchup), sort of sat there for a moment, then stood up, banged my fist on my desktop and shouted, "By Jove! I think she's on to something!"

Well, I didn't really do *that*, but the mental reaction was comparable :-0

Abigail:
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?<<<<<<<<<<<

I was thinking about the lack of a 'death' place-marker on the clock (in relation to someone else's post about it), and it struck me as incongruous, in a terrible way, that of all the other locations given, 'mortal peril' is the only abstract one. School, hospital, prison, etc. are all grounded in absolute physical location -- eg. Hogwarts, St. Mungo's, Azkaban (????? Whoa!) -- but one can be in mortal peril conceivably anywhere. If one of the Weasleys is in mortal peril while at work/school, or whatever, how does the clock know what to choose? I'm thinking here of Ron, who has definitely been in a few mortal situations of the perilous sort since his arrival at Hogwarts, but the only ones his parents seem to know anything about are Ginny's entrapment in the Chamber of Secrets and Ron and Harry's excursion to the Forbidden Forest. His defeat of McGonagall's chess set is fairly well-advertised after the fact (Percy brags on him at the awarding of the House Cup), but his parents never mention it.

Again, quite curious. I wonder what the elder Weasleys' reactions were, upon finding out about that. If they did... but I can't imagine Percy, or Fred and George for that matter, keeping his mouth shut.

This leads me to think that maybe the grandfather clock is an old family item in use during Voldemort's former terror spree, but was put in storage after his defeat and recently brought out again due to Arthur's (or Molly's) worry that things are heating up -- possibly as a direct result of the QWC debacle. In his first trip to the Burrow in CoS, Harry doesn't notice it; he notices the small, somewhat more pedestrian clock on the kitchen wall instead, which doesn't quite make sense to me. The locations on the grandfather clock itself seem applicable to wartime concerns; Molly would definitely want to know that Bill and Charlie are safe at school. But hospital? PRISON??? (Again, shades of Azkaban!) MORTAL PERIL????? I can't imagine that it's something I would want to look at in peacetime, especially a peace that seems guaranteed to be Voldemort-free for quite some time. It is something, though, that I think would be pulled out when it becomes apparent that a battle's on the horizon.

Cannot... leave... well... enough... alone....

This goes back to Elkins' theory on Imperio!Arthur (which, I think, was so satisfying it took the place of breakfast):

What if Arthur, as a result of being under the Imperius Curse, had to spend time in Azkaban awaiting trial and eventual acquittal? In his conversation with Molly in PoA4 (US paperback), there's a sort of telling pause at the end of Arthur's rant on Black's escaping:

"Black lost everything the night Harry stopped You-Know-Who, and he's had twelve years alone in Azkaban to brood on that...."

There was a silence. Harry leaned still closer to the door, desperate to hear more.

Maybe Arthur was reflecting on his own time in Azkaban, thinking about how it might have been a life sentence for him if he hadn't been acquitted -- possibly because of Mad-Eye Moody's intercession, as others have theorized, in breaking the Imperius Curse or otherwise helping Arthur out.

The Weasleys strike me as being law-abiding citizens, with the exception of Arthur's illicit Muggle-artifact hobby. Further, I think Azkaban is the only wizard prison mentioned (although what you do for mid-grade criminals, halfway between exploding dustbins and being a Death Eater is in doubt); at least, in CoS when Hagrid is taken away, there doesn't seem to be any question that that's where he was going, even as a temporary 'precaution.'

HF.
--
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Habent sua fata libelli.
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