The Weasley Family Detail That Has Harry Potter Fans Puzzled

It's been years since Harry defeated Lord Voldemort at the Battle of Hogwarts, but Harry Potter fans are still finding unsolved mysteries within the pages of the books. The latest question that has fans puzzled also happens to be a total tearjerker: What happened to Fred's hand on Molly's clock after his untimely death?

Both the Harry Potter books and films included the Weasley family's unique clock, which featured a hand for each of the nine members of the family. The hands on the clock would correspond with either the whereabouts of the Weasleys (home, school, traveling) or reveal if they were in danger (Molly notes that after the return of Voldemort, all nine hands are stuck on "mortal peril"). But neither the books nor the films address what happens when a member of the Weasley family dies.

Recently, redditor its_moliver devoted a post to this heartbreaking question, writing in part, "Where does Fred's name go now? Surely the clock knew what happened. Or maybe it was confused — which kind of makes me feel sad for it. Maybe it created a new status, "passed on," or something like that. Or maybe it went wherever George's name went?"

It seems this question has been haunting fans for some time, but unfortunately, there's no definitive answer. Instead, many fans have developed their own head canon about what happened to Fred's hand on the clock after he died during the Battle of Hogwarts, and all of the answers are bittersweet.

While its_moliver's Reddit thread is full of suggestions about what may have happened to Fred's clock hand — including it being stuck on the words "traveling" or "home" — the most popular theory is that the hand simply falls off when a member of the family dies. Of course, this creates the devastating scenario of the Weasleys returning home to the Burrow to find Fred's clock hand detached.

According to this theory, George wears Fred's hand on a chain around his neck for the rest of his life as a way to carry a piece of his twin with him wherever he goes. The exact origin of this bit of Harry Potter lore is unclear, but it dates back to at least a 2014 Facebook post in the Harry Potter group We Owe JKR Our Childhood. 

Interestingly, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has never addressed the question herself, despite her penchant for continuing to share wizarding world secrets with Harry Potter fans long after the series ended. This mystery may never be officially solved, but there's really no answer to the clock conundrum that doesn't involve an extra layer of heartbreak for the Weasley family.