Good evening, parents. Please settle down. We've got a lot to cover tonight, so if everyone would please take your seats. Except for... um... Mr. and Mrs. Bloomsbury, Mr. and Mrs. Grant, and Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig: your children were actually shrunken during Tuesday's potions class and eaten by tarantulas. So you're excused.

Everyone else can stay. Oh, I'm sorry. Not you, Mrs. Whitson. I forgot, your son was also eaten by tarantulas on Wednesday ... Excuse me? ... No, he wasn't shrunken. I believe someone cast a growth spell on the tarantulas ... Of course we killed those tarantulas on Tuesday. These were different tarantulas.

So, I apologize for the confusion. But we are now totally ready to begin ... What was that, Peter? ... Yes, I assure you those are all the students who were eaten by tarantulas this month—except for Mr. and Mrs. Gallagher's two daughters. You two are also excused.

First up tonight is the growing number of students caught smoking outside class since December. As you know, smoking on campus is punishable by suspension or mandatory pig-snout facial transmutation of the smoker. Mr. Lane, however, your son Joshua has been caught with tobacco products by the Tree of Wisdom on four separate occasion. Normally, this repeated offense would prompt extra harsh disciplinary action—however, he was recently crushed to death by a cave troll and is excused from punishment. So you can go, too, actually.

Allrighty, then. Um... those of you with first-year students in Professor Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class can pick up the frozen corpses of your children in the nurse's office -- except for those of you whose kids were chosen by the centaur prince to bear its 1000 children for the next eon. I have posted those names on the bulletin board outside.

You know, many of you seem overcome with grief, so we'll take a 10 minute break now. There's coffee and Nutter Butters set up in the back. Please help yourselves...

Oh, not you, Mrs. Emerson. You are also excused.