Silvia made her way out to the grounds. It was evening, and she was here to work on her astronomy homework. She had already worked with the sundial, and now it was time to practice using the nocturnal. There was still plenty of time before curfew, and she had decided to complete this portion on the grounds instead of the observatory. It was freezing out, and Silvia was tightly wrapped in her jacket. She found a bench in the courtyard to set her bag on, and quickly located the borrowed nocturnal within it. She also pulled out her notebook and set it down on the bench. The first step was to locate the north star to use as a reference point. She searched the sky, and it wasn’t long before she spotted the Little Dipper. She followed along it until her eyes alighted on the bright star at the end of its handle. “There you are,” she said.

Now for the nocturnal. Silvia played with the dials and arm, examining it. “So the letters indicate the month,” she reminded herself. “And I have to align that before I can figure out the time. And then I line up the arm.” She squinted at the device. She could just barely make out the letters in the dim lighting, the closest lamp being a little ways off. “Is that the ‘D’?” she wondered. The young student couldn’t tell for sure. So she reached for her wand. “Lumos,” she said, and the tip of her wand lit up. Much better; now she could read the letters and numbers on the nocturnal with ease. Silvia rotated the dial until the little arrow was pointing at the letter ‘D’ for December. This dial caused the numbers to shift around, accounting for the change in star position throughout the year, if she remembered correctly.