Entrance Gates

[DaniDiNardo]

Flanked by giant statues of winged boars on either side stands the strong wrought-iron gates that keep the students inside while making sure anything unwanted stays out. The Entrance Gates are the main entrance in and out of the Hogwarts Grounds and remains closed and locked at all times, the sole exception being the start and end of the school year for the carriages to pass through and during Hogsmeade weekends.

Staff members are the only ones who can undo the complex enchantments that surround this barrier, so don't even think about trying to sneak out for a late-night Butterbeer.

[MadMadamMalfoy]

It was a warm, sunny afternoon on Saturday, 12 April that Tina made her way toward the entrance gate. Perfect weather sundial weather... which was fortunate, as that was exactly what she was doing. She'd chosen this location for her astronomy assignment because it was quiet and away from the higher-traffic areas of the grounds. Less traffic meant less distractions from her work!

Tina had been reading up on sundials in the weeks since Professor Kennedy gave the assignment, and she learned it was a lot more in-depth than she originally thought! It involved calculating the center longitude of one's timezone and the distance between one's location and the center of the timezone... Merlin, just thinking of all the calculations involved made her brain explode! But first things first, she had to set up her sundial. She set her homemade sundial on the flattest part of the ground facing direct sunlight,smiling slightly at the cheery sun design she'd decorated on it. Then she pulled a small compass from her jeans pocket, and once she'd found true north, she turned her sundial so that the stick pointed that direction. As she did so, she worried about a professor catching her and drawing the wrong conclusions. No, she wasn't sneaking out... just trying to do her astronomy assignment!

She studied the shadow cast on her sundial. It was about halfway between the 2 and 3, so it must be about 2:30, right? Now came the hard part... trying to calculate the exact time. She opened her notebook, jotting down a few figures to help her with the calculations. So they were in GMT here, and the center longitude of that timezone was 0 degrees. She had no idea what the exact longitude for Hogwarts was, but she knew it was near Dufftown... and the longitude for Dufftown, as she'd looked up in the library last night, was about 3.13 degrees west. So that was a difference of 3.13, multiplied by the 4 minutes it took the sun to travel 1 degree... that made the sundial about 12 minutes behind the exact time. Tina adjusted her findings, then checked her watch to compare the time on the sundial to the time on her watch. Not too bad... she was only a minute or two off! She wrote in her notebook:

Text Cut: Tina's observations

Saturday, 12 April 2098
Location: Entrance Gate

Center longitude of timezone (GMT): 0
Current location longitude: approx. 3.13 W
3.13 x 4 = 12.52 (rounds up to 13 minutes behind actual time)

Time as displayed on sundial: 2:30 PM
Time adjusted for accuracy: 2:30 + 13 = 2:43 PM
Time as displayed on watch (for comparison): 2:45 PM

Notes
Today was sunny, not a cloud in the sky! The weather made reading the sundial very easy. I had a bit of trouble with the calculations to get the exact time at first, but I figured it out. The time shown on the sundial was off by about 15 minutes but when adjusted according to the calculations, it was only 2 minutes behind. All things considered, I think it was a fairly accurate reading.