Compass
It was a small, curious-looking object. Ron thought at first that it was a watch of some sort, but instead of numbers on the surface and hands to show the time, there were only minute letters and a needle that was red on one end and blue on the other. Besides, it had no strap to wrap around his wrist; it was just a small, flat round thing sitting in his hand. No matter which way he turned it, the red end would only point one way, towards his heart. Perhaps it was a guide of some sort, like the Deluminator… he stood up from his chair and turned in a half-circle to see if the needle would follow him, but it didn't; it was now pointing away.
He tried again. If this thing didn't point towards people, perhaps it would lead him to something… he walked forward, but had to stop when he reached the living-room sofa. He looked around and found nothing of interest. Same old pictures on the walls, same wedding photo over the mantelpiece. He took a moment to admire how beautiful Hermione looked in the photo, with his grinning face next to hers. He thought that he looked rather surprised, somewhat. But then that wasn't saying much, since he was, to this day, surprised that he had married the girl of his dreams. But back to the thing in his hand. "How does this work?"
"Have you never heard of a Four-Point Spell?" said Hermione, who had been watching him the whole time from the dinner table.
Ron wrinkled his nose in confusion. "Yes, but I thought you were showing me Muggle things."
"No, you miss the point," she replied. "This is a compass. It shows which way is North, and the red needle always points in that direction. You just turn it, see, so the big N is aligned with the needle." She took the compass from him and held it flat in her hand, turning it with the other so the N and the needle were perfectly in line.
"How?"
"Weren't you watching me, Ron?"
"No, I meant how does it know which way to point?"
Hermione looked at him strangely. "The world's a magnet, Ron. Surely you must have learned that in primary school."
"But I never went to primary school," he replied, mirroring her gaze. "Mum taught us all at home, because we couldn't aff – " He stopped and tried again. "You know what I mean. And since we were such a big family anyway, it had the same effect." He paused. "And what's a magnet?"
"Good heavens, Ron. What did you learn?" She was interested now, and had put down the compass to listen to him talk about his education before going to Hogwarts.
"Whatever Mum thought was useful, but certainly not that the world was a magnet, whatever that is."
"A magnet," explained Hermione, "is a piece of iron that has its atoms aligned in a certain way, such that it can attract other iron-containing metallic objects following a magnetic field."
Ron looked utterly lost.
Hermione gave a loud sigh. "Never mind. My point is, the compass works exactly like the Four-Point Spell, except that it also shows you where east, south and west are, while the spell only shows you North when you point your wand. The diagram on the compass is called a compass rose – I assume it's because it looks like one."
"Then what do these mean?" said Ron, pointing at the even tinier letters in between the big N, E, S and W.
"Those are just the middle points. I suppose the wizarding world doesn't use them as much." She shrugged. "This is actually a really old instrument; Muggles don't use them as much nowadays, because it can be built in on our mobile phones!"
Author's Note:
This was a slightly random but interesting idea from UniquelyMi, so I decided to try it out!
