I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

Students: I’m delighted to announce a new resource.

As some of you know (particularly my N.E.W.T students who’ve been giving me feedback on some samples), I’ve been working for the past two and a half years on a way to project a portion of the night sky and hold it for study and teaching (steadily, without ongoing need for concentration). I’m delighted to say I’ve reached a point where I believe the work is ready for regular classroom use.

Now, this does not replace our observation time (since you will still need to learn how to use your own telescopes and make your own observations). And, of course, no matter how good or how detailed my created images of the night sky are, they do not contain everything: only what I myself knew at the time I made the image. (And thus, it does not include ongoing or emerging stellar events, comets or meteors, or other things of that kind.)

However, I do think it will be an excellent resource in a number of situtations:
- to illustrate a point in class, so you can make more effective use of your observation time.
- to ilustrate more clearly things that cannot readily be seen with student telescopes.
- to make it easier to study or review before tests (both my own exams, and for O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams).

And of course, it will give us some additional options on cloudy nights without completely losing class time.

This option has limits: it takes me at least half an hour to link a combination of charms and create an image for each area, and it can be much longer for a more complicated or detailed piece of the sky. I plan to add another couple each week, until we have a well-stocked library of examples (focusing first on materials of use for O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. students, and then moving on to items covered regularly in the rest of the curriculum.)

Projections can be checked out by permission during hours I’m in my office, and an updated list of projections will be posted by my door each week. My classroom is available for their use, and I’ve also had the house-elves clean out a space on the floor directly below, as the projections are best viewed without distracting items behind them. (You’ll notice a large white sheet hung in a corner of my classroom for this purpose as well.)

If anyone is interested in the theory behind the project, I have an article in the next issue of the Journal of Modern Magical Theory and Experiment that explains some of the details, and I’d be glad to share my copy of the submitted version. Just stop by my office!

Our students on the YPL camping trip are, of course, delighted with the new private communication function in the journals, but it has raised a point of etiquette.

Although it is possible to leave a private comment in someone else's entry, I'd encourage students to remember that simply because something is possible does not mean it is polite. In other words, the student whose entry it is may feel excluded or upset that others are talking behind their back about something they said - just like whispering in the corner of a room might make someone feel excluded or laughed at. It would be much more polite to withdraw slightly (in this case, one can easily make a new separate entry.)

Since one of the purposes of the YPL is to help students build social skills and connections that will continue to serve them in their adult lives, I suspect we'll be revisiting this question during the coming school year, once we have all had the chance to experiment more with this new great gift from our Lord Protector (and made manifest by the dedicated work of the Ministry staff involved.)

Mr Selwyn - my very great thanks for your work on this, and your willingness to engage with students who have questions about how the process works. I hope you don't feel I've overstepped in mentioning a matter of social grace that our students - especially our younger students - may not know how to handle well yet.

Finally, for the parents of our rising second years: the camping trip is thus far going quite smoothly, and I'm sure you'll be hearing from your children in the near future: there will be some quiet time this afternoon that will allow for notes in the journals, as well as other times throughout the week.

First -
As noted to students yesterday, observation sessions for astronomy are limited to students preparing for OWLs and NEWTs as scheduled. Thank you for your cooperation, and do see me if you have any questions.

Second -
As you may know, I generally keep up an energetic correspondence with my family by owl, but that's stopped since Mum's donated the family owls to Ministry use. But in the last one she sent, she asked a question I've been thinking about ever since, and thought might be of interest to others.

As you may know, my last year at Hogwarts was the year our Lord Protector came to power - and it was a time of great uncertainty in many ways. Mum asked how I felt about being here now, compared to being here then.

Back then, it was - well, scary. You'd hear scraps of news, or see someone being pulled out of class by a teacher, reappearing hours later pale and teary. There were rumours of all kinds about who was doing what, and who was helping which side. There was great tension not only between the four houses, but between members of many of them. All of us - purebloods included - worried about what might be coming for us and how that would affect not only us, but our friends. Not that different from now, though the reasons for nervousness are different.

Like now, we felt quite isolated. News was filtered before it reached us, to avoid panic in the school. Trips outside Hogwarts were rare in those last few years. And yet, the world inside Hogwarts was painfully limited, for everywhere you went, there was a possibility of an argument, or a messy conversation, or news you just didn't want to hear. No matter how big the castle, you find other people eventually.

Two things were especially hard. One was the news of people you'd thought you knew, doing things that didn't seem possible Any number of deaths, especially for those recently out of Hogwarts, who were still remembered by their housemates and siblings and cousins and extended families: people we remembered vividly and clearly as laughing and joking and living. Most shocking, I think, were the Head Boys, Head Girls, and prefects who came to bad ends. How confusing to have looked up to someone for years, and then find out, all in a rush, that they were dead or disgraced, often for something no one would discuss in detail.

The other hard thing was that we had very little guidance. Now that I'm in a teacher's shoes, I understand the difficulty. All rumour to the contrary, I did not get presented with some magical device to help me guide students wisely through complex decisions when I returned as a teacher.

But I do wish there'd been something. Of course, I asked my parents, my aunts and uncles and older cousins for advice. But those people - as loving as they are - also remembered me as a tot, and as a silly ten-year-old, and all sorts of other things that shape memory.

As I look back, I wish more and more for guidance from other adults in the community as we left school and cast about in those first few years about how to make our way in our new lives. We went from the protection of Hogwarts to the deep waters of a strange new world, and had nothing to help us keep our balance. And again, some of us succeeded more than others, and all of us remember those of promise who fell along the way. And yet, without knowing why those others fell, all of us feared doing the same, for some reason we didn't know to avoid.

As a teacher, I have no wish to stick my nose into a student's personal affairs, unless those affairs directly affect their learning or other students. And, like all the staff here, I certainly have enough other things on my mind that I'm scarcely looking for more things to fill my day. And yet, I keep wondering what might be different if we did make more time for these things.

But I am glad, these days, to see that more staff here make some attempt to reach out . Poppy has made it easier and easier for students to seek her out. While Professor Slughorn's gatherings are legendary, I'm delighted to see more staff opening their doors for similar gatherings or sponsoring clubs of interest.

To that end: students who are interested in general conversation, I am glad to open my office to you on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday nights, after dinner until eight. No particular agenda, and no butting into your decisions, but a chance to have conversations somewhere about topics other than school

I would also - for any students who read this far - encourage you to take time to find things that engage you in multiple ways. Find time to be quietly alone and think. Find time to spend with friends. Spend time on both your studies and your hobbies. Be gentle with each other - you may not know the pressures someone else or their family is under right now. Get to know others - the people you meet now will continue to intersect your lives for decades to come. I'm excited about steps students have already taken - the new proposed clubs and organisations for example - and I hope to see still more in future.