Time's Last Laugh [Harry Potter Fanfiction]

The Man in the Clock

The clock that sits upon Harry's mantelpiece is a sturdy, ponderous piece of furniture. It looks like it belongs in a pretentious sort of tosser's house, not on a tiny fireplace that doesn't look like it can support its weight. Since the fireplace has held that clock up for over fifteen years, looks are obviously deceiving. Nonetheless, Harry likes the feeling of precariousness the clock gives him - it suits how he feels - has felt - for a long time. Nearly as long as he's had the clock, in fact.

For all the symbolism attributed to it, the clock looks like an ordinary clock (even if it is a pretentious tosser's sort of clock). It has all the numbers, the hour, minute, and second hands helpfully pointing to the time, and a chime which informs passerby disinclined to use their eyes that it's the top of the hour. It's performed this function so well for so long that Harry has forgotten what else it can do.

So when one day it goes BOOOONGGGG..., Harry is startled into snorting his firewhiskey-laced tea out of his nose. Groaning from the burn in his nose, Harry squints through watering eyes up at the mantel. The clock's face is serene, gives no indication that it's done anything so wholly out of its usual function, or that indeed anything unusual has happened.

Harry sits stock-still, only swiping irritably at his eyes when they blur from the water, obscuring his view. Holding his breath, he counts under his breath as he continues to stare at the clock as if it were demented.

Five...four...three...two...

BOOOOONGGGGG....

"It can't be," he whispers, jaw nearly meeting the floor. "There's no way."

He stands, drawing his wand on reflex as he advances upon the clock. Peering at the face, still unchanged, Harry counts again. Four...three...two....

BOOOOONGGGGG....

"Te revelare."

The clock face glows with Harry's spell, goes opaque, then shines like a mirror. Harry glimpses his own face, pale as the Bloody Baron, dark-circled eyes wide behind his chunky glasses. Then another image plumes up, obscuring his reflection. The face which appears is entirely unknown to him - a smirking, almost feminine face, except for the masculine cut of his cheekbones and jaw, mischief in his eyes and cunning ambition in the curl of his generous mouth. Raising an amused eyebrow, the man tilts his face in greeting, then shifts and holds up an elegant hand.

OP DOVH TO RESUME, say the brilliant silver words that shimmer into being above his hand. BRING NEEDLE AND THREAD.

Harry has barely read the last word when the stranger snaps his hand closed. With another smirk, the man holds up a finger, then reaches into his ear. Digging thoughtfully around in it, his face registers triumph, upon which he then draws a gleaming Galleon coin out of his ear and tosses it in Harry's direction. Astounded, Harry scrambles to catch the coin as it falls out of the clock; before his eyes, the numbers and letters on the Galleon start moving, flying about in a furious cloud before they settle, like birds, into a coherent message.

When Harry looks back up at him, the man in the clock gives him a sly wink. Then he turns round and moves out of the clock face, which, on cue, smoothly reverts to its original appearance as if it had never been gone.

Harry will never admit that it takes far too many minutes of standing dumbly in his kitchen staring at a perfectly ordinary clock before he snaps to his senses. Glancing hurriedly at the Galleon in his hand, he curses when he discovers the message is gone. Thinking furiously, he draws his wand and taps the Galleon, thinking needle and thread. A flash, then nothing: the Galleon's face doesn't change, the numbers do not move. Harry tries again, keeping the wandtip pressed to the coin. The flash this time nearly blinds him - he'd forgotten about that. Blinking the spots away, he looks down at the Galleon. Bingo.