Parking meter

A parking meter is a Muggle device used to charge drivers of cars and other automobiles for time spent in a parking place and measure how much time they have legally remaining at the rate paid.

In the summer of 1991, while he was taking Harry Potter to Diagon Alley to get his Hogwarts, parking meters were amongst the "perfectly ordinary" Muggle things that Rubeus Hagrid kept pointing at and saying things like "See that, Harry? Things these Muggles dream up, eh?"

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 5 - (Diagon Alley)