The nature of the budgeting and planning process Essay

The nature of the budgeting and planning process - Essay Example The overall purpose of the budgeting process is to ensure that the organization has enough finances of operations and expenditure. The first purpose of the budgeting process is communication, where each department in the organization communicates the need for resources and how the resources will be used. This is done by explaining the volume of activities that the department will engage in and the amount of resources that will be needed. The budgeting and planning process is also important for coordination of tasks in the organization, since the different departments in the organization perform interrelated task (Hansen and Wim, 2004). Coordination of processes is achieved when the different departments provide a plan for their resource allocation and the relation to the resource allocation from other departments. Budgets are also used for planning the activities of the organization for a specified period. This is achieved by preparing budgets that predict resource usage for forthcoming fiscal periods. When these budgets are prepared, the organization can determine the resource needs and, therefore, prepare the necessary financial resources for acquisition of the planned resources. Budgets are also used for control and motivation, where the budgets act as a measure of performance and improvement. This means that the prepared budget is used as a standard of measurement of performance, and the different departments are motivated to improve their performance according to the budget allocated. The nature of the budgeting and planning process is reflected by the characteristics of the budget prepared by the departments and the organization. The budget can be defined as a plan for the allocation of financial resources to the various processes in the organization, therefore, the budgeting and planning process refers to the steps taken to prepare and measure organizational performance using a budget. The requirements of the budgeting and planning process can then be inferred from the above definition of a budget. The budgeting and planning process requires knowledge of the required resources by each department, the expected usage of resources, the forecast of the cost of resources, and the expected financial inflows and outflows. Types of Budgets According to Sean, Garrison and Noreen (2008), budgets can be classified into many types, including zero-based budgets, incremental budgets, fixed and flexibl e budgets. These budgets classifications are done according to the basis for budget preparation, whether the budget is prepared according to activity level, fiscal periods, or resource availability. Zero-based budgeting refers to a budgeting method where each department is required to provide a justification of all the expenses presented in the budget statement. Traditional budgeting methods require a manager to add or subtract amounts from the previous fiscal period budget, however, zero-based budgets start from a zero baseline and all expenditures have to be justified. Conversely, incremental budgets are based on the previous period’

Communication Infrastructure and how it was affeted by Huricane Term Paper

Communication Infrastructure and how it was affeted by Huricane Katrina - Term Paper Example The national communication policy focuses much on the improvement on all the communication services so that everybody is served as fast as possible with the aim of improving the relation and the connection between individuals in different places. In order to achieve this, the national communication policy has placed more emphasis on the service providers to ensure that they restructure their services to meet the future challenges in communication sector. The policy recognizes that the role played by the communication system is vital since it affects the whole economy and hence most government policies would be based on the ICT policies (World Bank Group, 2002). The role played by the ICT is very important in all the other sectors of the economy since any effect in the communication sector results into the direct or the indirect effect on the other sectors of the economy. This can be either direct like in the E-commerce and the companies that have multinational operations may also be affected. It is therefore the role of the government to formulate those policies that aims at improving the communication systems. The communication policies also provide for the response to the disasters such that of Hurricane Katrina. There is the local mobilization of the resources by the local authorities as well as the federal so as to ensure that response is done as faster as possible to safeguard the national infrastructure against the disasters (Johnson & Turner, 2002). The military may also assist in the times of disasters though there is no direct integration of the military efforts within the communication policies. As a result, the military often join the rescue teams and the first responders as the second responders in disasters like hurricane Katrina. In order for the government to ensure that all these policies are harmonized and all the players in the sector are treated fairly, the government has established a regulatory authority to look into the conflicts and also to regulate the communication sector. The communications regulatory authority plays a vital role in regulating the telecommunications, radio and television frequency spectrum, posts and other communication careers (Johnson & Turner, 2002). This ensures that communication is effective and efficient and accordance with the law. Regulatory authority also protects the customer, service providers as well as other people involve in communication industry. It is the role of the regulatory authority to ensure that all the communication systems are in line with the modern technology and hence helps the customer to link with others in the international scene. The provision of radio and television spectrums is important since they ensure there is no mix up in the communication from the many providers. In trade, the communication regulatory authority also assist the businesses by identification of the barriers to trade and hence formulate policies that would ensue free and ease of movement of g oods and services from one region to another (Johnson & Turner, 2002). The investments from other nations as well as from domestic are regulated by the communication regulatory authority. In this way, it formulates and implements a policy that does not only make communication easy, but also provide opportunities for trade. Increasing Security and Protection Communication plays an important aspect in the development of

Tourism Product Analysis And Tourism Operations Management Tourism Essay

Tourism Product Analysis And Tourism Operations Management Tourism Essay My business has been created on the basis of knowing that Scotland is one of the most internationally known countries for its culture and beautiful scenery. Its based on a coaching holiday for 5 nights, 6 days that will be suitable for people who enjoy scenery, touring, culture and heritage. It will be run by a medium sized company located in Edinburgh that is called Saltire Tours and will be aimed at European tourists. Reasons for setting the business in Edinburgh are that its the capital of Scotland and has some fantastic history for all to see. This report will be a tourism product analysis of what the business has to offer and what factors will affect the operational side of things. PEST analysis, Competitors and Consumers are all important and will be explained thoroughly as to what and how they will affect the business. This research report will look into the factors that could affect demand for coaching holidays to Scotland from the European Market. It is based on a coaching holiday run by a medium sized company based in Edinburgh that is called Saltire Tours. On completion, the report will be an analysis of the external environment and a product analysis to identify and justify the key features of the product in which the product will operate. Factors being analysed will include Political, Environmental, Social and Technological (PEST) and will show how they impact both positively and negatively on the Coach Tour Company succeeding. A competitor analysis will also be carried out to evaluate and discuss what kind of threat (if any) that may pose to the tour/programme. Another part of this report will include findings for a consumer analysis to determine the Market overall for the Coach Tour Company. The product itself will be given in detail to explain the key features and why it should be introdu ced in the tourism industry. Pest Analysis Factors that may affect Demand for coach holidays in Scotland involve: Political Environmental Social Technological Political factors that may affect coach tours could be recent terrorist attacks in Britain, which occurred in Glasgow Airport the 30th June 2007 and London 7th June 2005. Author Chris Greenwood (2008) wrote about the man who was behind the attacks Abdulla realised his mission had failed, he dressed in a red and white headscarf for the final suicide attack on Glasgow Airport. Another problem was the Icelandic Volcanic episode in April which closed European airspace. These incidents could put people off travelling to the UK, which would affect Scottish Coach Tours as they are based in Scotland. Higher levels of security and regulations are now put in place at airports, which is more time consuming for travellers, and its more inconvenient causing people to be impatient when travelling. Also inflation rates in the UK are pushing up prices for visitors such as fuel costs and 17.5% VAT which would affect Coach Tours as they use Coaches for taking their tourists around Scotland. The Coach Company will be a member of the Green Tourism Business Scheme as it will help encourage the tourism business to be environmentally friendly. The Coach tour will benefit from this as it will have a positive effect on visitors booking up for tour packages as visitors are now very conscious of the environment and will appeal to eco-conscious visitors especially. Social factors could involve the fact that European visitors find touring holidays very popular in the category of different holidays (see appendix 1) which is beneficial to the company as we specialise in Coach Tours in Scotland. Also another social factor could be the outbreak of Swine Flu that has hit Scotland and various other places throughout the UK, this may put people off travelling causing the tourism industry to suffer. A positive social factor could be that Scotland has a lot of historic and cultural attractions that people overseas would love to visit; this will encourage more people to visit Scotland meaning a possible increase of consumers for Saltire Tours as we specialise in culture tours. Technological factors could affect Saltire Tours due to the Internet now making it possible to book directly with tour operators which will be a positive as it saves paying the Travel Agent commission. Saltire Tours will have their own website and E brochures. Also there are new developments in aircraft technology, which cuts down travelling time being a positive for the International visitors coming to Scotland for a Culture Tour of Scotland. There are more comfortable coaches for touring these days with TVs, toilets, and internet facilities on board the coaches which we will take on board and provide our visitors with luxury coaches during their time with us. Competitor Analysis Benchmarking We have looked at two other Tour Companies that are in the similar market. The Analysis of each company compared to ours will help us find out the positives and negatives of our business and what we can do to improve the Culture Coach Tour through other competitors. Haggis Adventures Their tours include an adventure with like-minded travellers; transport and a tour guide. Saltire Tours will include Transport, Blue Badge Guides, and Accommodation, Food, Excellent Customer service and First class attractions as a package. Haggis Adventures dont organise everything for your tour, you have to make your own accommodation arrangements, where to eat and you might not visit some of Scotlands finest attractions. This is definitely a chance for our business to introduce a bigger and better package for tourists that want to relax and have a great time knowing that everything is going to run smoothly and there wont be any stress as everything is arranged. Also Haggis Adventures are more for the younger generation and since the highest proportion of holidaymakers visiting Scotland are in the 20 to 60-age range they would enjoy Saltire Tours better as our tour is suitable for that age category. Saltire Tours will also specialise in Tours whereas Haggis Adventures doesnt, this will be a strength to Saltire Tours. However, a weakness for Saltire Tours is that Haggis Adventures have been running for 5 years and have experience in this field of tourism whereas Saltire Tour is just starting up as a brand new product. Moray Tours Moray Tours in Scotland offer quality, flexible culture tours for up to six people. Whereas Saltire Tours will offer quality culture tours for up to 20 people which is a strength in the tourism Industry as Saltire Tours can offer much more to the Tourists in a way smaller tour companies cant. Their tours only start in Elgin whereas Saltire Tours will be very flexible and can pick visitors up from wherever the tour group suits which is another strength for Saltire Tours. A strength that both Moray and Saltire Tours share is the quality of the tour guides on their coaches and the comfortable coaches they both use. A threat to Saltire Tours could be that Moray Tours is well known and this could affect Saltire Tours business. Also on their website, there is no mention of a price for Moray Tours whereas Saltire Tours gives a package price for the whole tour making it stress free throughout the holiday. Consumer Analysis The market size for our business will be relatively big as we will be aiming our tours at the whole of Europe. It has been found that specifically German and Italian tourists will be interested in our tours as Germany is the highest ranked in terms of trips, bed nights and expenditure, where its  £187million figure is double the next ranked: Italy (Visit Scotland). Factsheets on these countries will be sourced at the end of the report (see appendices 23) Notice our target market (overseas) In June 2010 to August 2010, the seasonally adjusted number of visits by overseas residents to the UK increased by 6 per cent to 7.6 million, when compared with the previous three months. Associated spending by overseas residents on visits to the UK increased by 7 per cent to  £4.4 billion (National statistics). Our coach tour company will focus on these months on advertising to attract large numbers of tourists seeing as these are the most popular months for our target market. Visits from Europe have increased from 16.1 million in 2000 (a 37 per cent increase) and are now approximately the same as in 2000. (Office for national Statistics 2009) Also 22.1 million of the total 29.9 million visits to the UK in 2009 were made by air. (Office for national Statistics 2009) Therefore our consumers will be travelling mostly by air to Scotland which will be included in the package price. This will be beneficial to Saltire Tours as we will be able to use SGIT fare block on a basis, which will be the ideal scheduled airline for Saltire Tours visitors to fly with, as its a flexible duration of 5 nights, which SGIT caters for. Product Analysis Description of basic product offering and product features Our Coach Tour Company has constructed a 5 nights, 6 days Tour suitable for people who enjoy scenery, touring, culture and heritage. Scotland has been one of the most internationally known countries for its culture. As our country has developed over the many hundreds of years, it has developed a culture that is both interesting and fascinating. Saltire Tours have taken time to develop a coach tour suitable for the International visitors that will meet all their holiday needs. They will enjoy living in some top class hotels, these include: The Balmoral Hotel, Thistle Hotel, Stirling Highland Hotel, Royal George Hotel and Poppies Hotel. Visit Scotland (2010) studies show that Hotels remain the preferred accommodation for international tourists. The places they will visit on this 6-day tour of Scotland will include two of the major cities: Edinburgh and Glasgow. Also Stirling, Crieff and Callander will be included in the tour. They will experience our way of life whilst living in a tenement building, to visiting some of our fine art galleries. We have also included in the tours some of our fine whisky distilleries to experience Scotlands famous drink and whilst they are having fun during the day, they will also experience Scottish entertainment at its best! This will include Scottish pipe music, Celidh, Poetry and a concert involving Accordions and fiddles. Whilst the International tourists will be entertained by Scotlands well-known attractions such as Edinburgh Castle, Royal Mile, Sir Walter Scotts House and Stirling Castle, they will be able to luxuriate in Scottish cuisine throughout their stay and find out how it feels to be Scottish! The hotels they will be staying in will be no less than 3 stars and they will be situated in the areas of interest to suit the tours to make them run as smoothly as possible. This complies with the Green Tourism Business Scheme, which is the national sustainable tourism certification scheme for the UK. All the hotels are members of this scheme. Justification of why this product should be produced This product should be produced as Scotland doesnt have a company like Saltire Tours. There is certainly Coach Tours available but none are specifically tailored down to fine detail like our business will produce. Our consumers will experience everything there is to love about Scotland from experiencing the food, scenery, culture; they will certainly know what its like to feel like a true Scot by the end of their holiday. Another reason is that not many companies offer a carefree holiday in Scotland where all their needs are met and international tourists will not know where to start on experiencing Scotland. Saltire Tours will organise everything from accommodation, transport, attractions, wining and dining to evening entertainment as a package holiday price making sure what is included is only the best and relevant to international tourists that wish to experience Scottish Culture.

Creatine :: essays research papers

CREATINE Athletes will put many different types of supplements and drugs to increase their physical strength. These supplements range from protein shakes to steroids. Some sports supplements are incredibly safe and effective, while others still work well but do more damage than good in the long run. In the past athletes had to turn to such things as anabolic steroids or blood doping (the process of taking out blood and adding oxygen to it and putting it back into their body in order to increase their endurance). But they are illegal. Many supplements are as simple as packaged energy and others require a strict exercise and eating regimen. I will explore creatine and it's effect on the sport world.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Creatine was first introduced to the US in 1993 by a supplement company called Experimental and Applied Sciences. Since then it has become one of the most demanded items on the market. The creatine that is bought in stores duplicates the natural creatine that is produced by the kidney, liver, and pancreas. Creatine Monohydrate has been proven to significantly enhance athletic performance in the areas of power, strength, and muscle mass. Most importantly though, it doesn't seem to have any serious side effects. Also, since Creatine is found naturally in the body and in foods, it is likely that it will not be removed from sports.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Creatine is a nutrient that is found in many foods. It is most highly concentrated in lean red meat. A half-pound of red meat contains about two grams of Creatine. Every human body also produces Creatine in very small amounts, though some people produce more than others. Creatine is necessary for proper cell functions and cell reproduction, it is also a primary storage for energy in muscles.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Creatine works when somebody is exercising, his or her muscles demand energy. The energy that the muscle gets is called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). As the muscles keep contracting, the ATP is turned into adenosine diphosphate (ADP). ADP causes your muscles to fatigue. Creatine Phosphate helps to convert ADP into ATP when the ATP is gone. In doing this, the athlete has better endurance during his of her workout or event.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  If all this were true, it would be easy to see why athletes are turning to Creatine for an edge on their competition. But are these claims real? Is their scientific proof of what Creatine does?

Corporate Entrepreneurship Essay

Background: US Broadcasting Industry: The US media industry was the second largest market around world at $255.1 billion and was forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 2.3 percent till 2017. Within the media industry, broadcasting and TV was the largest category with a market of $142.6 billion. The industry players were competing mainly with one another for viewership to drive advertising revenue which was the primary source of profits. The traditional advertising driven business model started to shift due to a few trends. First of all, there were more ways for broadcasting advertisers to reach customers. The progressive consumerization of technologies such as social media tools had contributed to this trend. Secondly, new technology products made it possible for users to skip advertising. Thirdly, the content creation was getting localized and the audience was fragmenting. Fourthly, more television advertising was purchased through consolidated conglomerates which had various resources with better insights about their target audiences. Lastly, the switch from analogue to digital TV broadcasting not only led to multicasting with more channels but also made the industry more favorable for new entrants. In general, the technologies were putting so much pressures on the traditional business of this industry. Latinos in the US: There were also unique factors for this largest minority group in US. Firstly, the Latinos were growing at 8 times the rate of the non-Latino population and contributed to nearly 17% of US total population. Other than that, the per capita income of US Latinos were higher than any of the BRIC and households and was growing at a faster rate than the number of total households in US. Thirdly, Latinos were on the path of â€Å"acculturation† and they were leading dual lives. However, the Latinos formed only 6% of the total marketing pie as an audience and there did exist a huge gap. As a result, Latino market had truly become the most potential market segment for various industries. Entravision, Luminar and the Big Data: Entravision, which had 56 TV stations and 49 radio stations in most popular Latino markets across US in 2013, was the largest independent public media company focused principally on the US Latino audience. Regards all the strong corporate performances and growths, Franklin Rios and Walter Ulloa, the founding chairman of Entravision, had agreed on to set up an analytics division called Luminar in Entravision. The main objective of Luminar was to act as the first mover which would leverage Big Data analytics at Entravision to offer exceptional marketing and advertising products as well as lead Entravision to transform from a media company into an information and analytics company. Situation: Rios understood the impacts both the technological trends and the Latino demographic trends had made to the US broadcasting industry. He understood that the traditional market research tools had limitations which would not help him to further extract insights from the US Latino market and the search for alternatives led him to the Big Data. His Big Data initiative was strongly supported by Ulloa as he believed that leveraging Big Data at Entravision could not only help them to fully understand the Latino market to extract its huge potential values but also serves as a new element of corporate strategy to lead Entravision to stand out from its traditional media industry competitors. As a result, Rios and Ulloa decided to establish Luminar as the Big Data analytic division at Entravision. At the same time, Ulloa’s own interest in the launch of Luminar we driven by these 4 objectives: Entravision should transform from a media company into an information and analytics company. Laminar would be the centerpiece of such a transformation of Entravision. The new data driven approach of Luminar would complement the traditional survey driven approach of Entravision. Luminar would in the long run to be a new revenue stream for Entravision. As the first mover in the space without any competitor in sight, Luminar and Entravision had gained strategic advantages over their competitors. Using the Socio-technical framework to further understand Luminar and Entravision’s positions under the Big Data environment, it is important to consider Entravision and Luminaries respectively and then collectively to evaluate how closely they align with each other: Entravision: Structure: A listed company, multiple broadcasting stations, with traditional corporate function units such as Finance, Marketing, R&D, Sales and etc. People: Nearly 1,000 employees, familiar with the old industry norms, believe qualitative data was more important than quantitative data. IT: Majorly TV and Radio, mobile, digital, web, other interactive media Process: All kinds of traditional ways of delivering values to customers, community involvement, local content creation. Luminar: Structure: New corporate entrepreneurship, division of Entravision, President Rios reporting directly to Ulloa, initial investments all from parent company People: Exposed to technologies and innovations, data driven, IT: Huge amount of data from various sources, Hortonworks, MapReduce, high performance data analysis platform Process: New revenue streams, data analytics, using various algorithms From the above Socio-technical framework analysis, there were huge differences between Entravision and Luminar in terms of structure, people, IT and process. Also, this distinct misalignment could seed potential roadblocks for Luminar’s future growth. Problems: Rios was truly facing some problems before the launch of Luminar. First of all, the growth target set by Ulloa for Luminar to generate 10% of the revenues of Entravision in 5 years was achievable but was too aggressive and pressuring. He was confident that with no competitors in the market Luminar could reach this target, however, he did need more time to sort out other problems. Secondly, unbalanced interests lead him to question about the  effectiveness of Luminar’s structure fit into Entravision as a fully embedded division. Moreover, there was no proper performance measurement system existing at that moment for Luminar to build up the credibility both internally and externally. Furthermore, although Luminar could approach internally or externally, there was still no clear direction for Luminar regarding how to leverage Big Data analytics at Entravision. Lastly, Rios was also worried about how he could sustain a first mover advantage for Luminar and the business model could not easily been imitated by competitors. Based on all the issues Rios were concerning, the fundamental problem should lied on that there were no internal buy-in at Entravision because people were skeptical about Luminar. Therefore, how to successfully securing internal buy-in became extremely critical to Luminar’s sustainable long term growth. Analysis: Obviously, for Entravision, it had stable business and constant growth for years. At the same time, the strong demographic trend of Latino group was bringing more and more opportunities for future business of Entravision. Furthermore, the traditional marketing method based on qualitative data were still believed to be reliable. As a result, there was no evidence of any burning platform at Entravision and thus no urgency for any organizational change. The socio-technical framework analysis in the situation part also shows that there were distinct misalignments between Luminar and Entravision regarding the 4 organizational aspects including structure, people, IT and processes. These misalignments indicates that it could be really hard for Entravision people to understand, accept and then support what Luminar was about to do. Securing internal buy-in Entravision was really critical to Luminar. First of all, as its entrepreneur division, Entravision would be committing funds for the laun ch of the Big Data initiative and its growth. The funds would be provided to Luminar on annual basis. Thus, if the internal buy-in was not in place, Luminar’s funds for growth would not be guaranteed regardless the performance of Luminar. Secondly, one of the major objectives for establishing Luminar was to make it as a central part of corporate strategy to transform Entravision from a traditional media company  to an information and analytics company. Rios and Ulloa had to admit that this was also an attempt to change the underlying corporate culture of Entravision and culture change has been considered as the most challenging part for any organization change. Without internal buy-in, the transformation efforts would quickly fade out without changing the DNA of Entravision. Thirdly, the new data driven approach of Luminar was expected to be complemented with the traditional survey driven approach of Entravision. Without internal support from Entravision R&D department, Luminar would not be able to come up with more int egrated and systematic solutions to its customer and offer its customer with better and insightful marketing solutions to target at the US Latino group. In addition, Luminar relied strongly on the partnership with Entravision. Entravision’s market experiences as well as customer relationships could provide Luminar with a very resourceful platform to start their sales. If Luminar could not secure internal buy-in from department such as Marketing, Luminar would not be able to leverage this resourceful platform to make itself as a new revenue stream for Entravision. When we look back at the minor problems in the previous section that Rios was trying to figure out, it seems that most of them were resulted from the major issue that there were no internal buy-in in place. For example, Rios was wondering what kind of structural fit Luminar should be, what caused this was exactly the different interests from internal stakeholders. If they all the internal stakeholders were supporting Luminar, the anticipated structural fit for Luminar to be a strategic division in Entravision should be the win-win solution. Other than that, Rios’ concern on performance milestones was also caused by the lack of internal buy-in because Rios needed to lead Luminar to achieve those milestones to establish credibility with not only with customers but also with employees of Entravision. Decision Criteria: 1: Financial stability The first criteria for evaluating the best option is financial stability. Although Luminar was different from traditional type of startup companies which were always looking for sources of funds, Luminar still faced  pressures from losing support from Ulloa and Entravision. If there was not any feasible substitution for funds available for Luminar, Luminar should try to ensure the current committed funds from Entravision. 2: Remove resistances from R&D, finance and sales department Internal resists came primarily from the three sources which are R&D, finance and sales departments. The winning option should effectively remove the roadblocks from all of these 3 departments. Luminar absolutely needed corporations from these 3 departments to support its long term growth. The R&D would be providing human and technical resources for Luminar to develop the Big Data analytic solutions. The finance department would be responsible for funding Luminar and measuring its performance. Sales department would help Luminar approach its new products and solutions to Entravision’s existing customers as well as any new potential customers. 3: Sustain long term culture change This criteria requires the option to be able to sustain long term culture change inside Entravision. Basically, the option could further help the Entravision employee understand what Big Data is and what kind of benefits Big Data could bring to them. If the Entravision employees started to realize the solutions based on quantitative data is better than the traditional norms based on the qualitative data, they would start to accept Big Data and Luminar and finally start to change the culture. 4: Potence of creating business synergies and new revenue streams. This criteria is used to evaluate if the options have potential to create business synergies and new revenue streams. The Luminar was not even started so everything was still unknown. As a result, one of the easiest ways to secure internal buy-in would be showing that the option had potential to create business synergies and new revenue streams. The above 4 criteria are listed according to their priorities. Criteria 1 must be satisfied as it is critical to all new business adventure. Criteria 2 also needs to be satisfied because unable to remove those major resistances could directly result in failing the process of securing  internal buy-in. Criteria 3 also needs to be satisfied as it could further strengthen the internal buy-in by eventually encoding the data analytics into Entravision’s DNA. The last criteria is also important as satisfying it could deliver Entravision with even higher level of confidence in Luminar. Options: Since Luminar was not even started, the proposed options here are basically strategic proposals that Rios could present to Ulloa and the board of directors to show how he could possibly secure the internal buy-in. 1: Luminar as an independent startup company and acts as a strategic partner with Entravision For this option, Rios would propose that Luminar to become a separate company and maintain an arm’s-length with Entravision. As an independent startup company, Luminar would acquire its own resources such as R&D, HR, Operation, Marketing and Sales. With initial funds from Entravision, Luminar could go out and seek more venture capitals for its build up and future development. At the same time, the company can focus on its own corporate vision and objectives without worrying about any resistances from Entravision. As a strategic partner with Entravision, Luminar could still take advantage from Entravision’s resourceful platform. For this option, since Luminar did not have any prototype available and with only the ideas in Rios’ mind, it could be really hard for Luminar to seek external venture capitals. In the meantime, securing funds from Entravision executives would also become harder as it is no longer a part of Entravision. As a result, this option has very high risk in securing the financial stability and could not satisfy the first criteria. Luminar would no longer act as a change agent in Entravision if it becomes independent. Thus this option would also not meet criteria 3. Although this option strongly satisfying criteria 2, it still can be easily opted out as it does not meet the most important criteria 1 and 3. 2: Luminar as a strategic division and focus on leveraging Big Data externally For this option, Luminar would keep the current structure fit to be a strategic division of Entravision. At the same time, Luminar would  focus on leveraging Big Data externally by targeting with external customers. Rios already had initiatives in mind and he planned to develop three specific products based on Big Data at Luminar. The first product would be Analytics which could interpret data to help clients target their customers better. The second product would be a service that could â€Å"cookie-tize† offline transactions data to merge with online data and altogether to enable clients to expand the scope of their digital market. The third product could improve the accuracy of social media to provide customers with more fine-grind market insights. Rios would initially use the three new products to aim at blue chip marketers and advertisers who were Entravision customers and provide them with competitive advantages. For this option, as long as Luminar could generate topline performance, Entravision would continue to invest in Luminar. As a result, this option satisfy criteria 1 as it keeps Entravision as the best investor to keep financial stability. Luminar’s focus on external customers might not effectively remove the resistance from its R&D department. However, by targeting at the blue chip key customers, any successful sales closure could turn the marketing team from resistance to support. Regarding the financial department, as long as the revenue starts to come in, CFO and the financial folks would start to believe in Luminar. Thus, for the second criteria, this option could partially satisfy it. For the third criteria, as most of Entravision employees were still not able to see the benefits that Big Data could bring to them and with remaining major resistance from R&D department, this option could not effectively sustain the long term culture change. For the criteria 4, this option successfully satisfy it as it would definitely create new revenue streams for Entravision. 3: Further leveraging Big Data at Entravision through internal innovations. This option is basically built on the top of option 2 and Lumina would further leveraging Big Data internally. Luminar would still focus strongly on the existing external customers and developing those 3 products for offering. Other than that, Luminar would design and develop tools and solutions specifically tailored to internal departments. For example, Luminar could develop Big Data initiatives to help finance department to tracking real time cash flows as well as forecasting budgets. For HR  department, solutions could be created for helping them in team building and performance evaluation. For sales department, Big Data could also help them in inventory management, forecasting, relationship management, closing deals and etc. Regarding the R&D department, Luminar could also offer solutions which were basically better than what they were having. Meanwhile, Luminar could work with R&D department to achieve predictive analytics in the future. For this option, it would boost the corporate performance through both internal and external initiatives. It could definitely satisfy criteria 1. For criteria 2, this option further indicates what Luminar and Big Data could bring to those 3 departments. With both the external performance and internal benefits, the 3 departments would likely to start buy-in and thus this criteria is also satisfied. For the third criteria, this option allows Lumina to distinguish most number of early adopters throughout the corporation and they could simply help with spreading the DNA out to rest of the corporation to sustain the long term culture change. For the last criteria, this option is truly able to show that Luminar would be potential to create business synergies by offering various internal initiatives and new revenue streams through those 3 mentioned products targeting external customers. By comparing all of the above options, approaching the third option seems the most favorable as it satisfy all of the four criteria. When Rios was about to propose this option to Ulloa and the board of directors, they would be confident that Luminar could successfully remove the resistances and secure sufficient internal buy-in. Plan: Short term: 6 months to 1 year For the short term, Rios should clearly propose the winning option to Ulloa and rest of the board of directors. He needed to explain the proposal with great details which would help the directors to carry forward his ideas and messages down to each department of Entravision. The next thing Rios should do was to officially establish Luminar and start seeking for the resources to build up his team. The DNA of the Entravision was not analytical, thus,  it would be better to attract resources from outside of Entravision. At the same time, Luminar should target at hiring analytic resources with strong Latino background as they know how to generate better insights from the Latino market. By end of the 6th month, Luminar should have the core team successfully built. After that, Luminar should start the data acquisition tasks. The process he envisioned involved building a database of US adults and a subset of Latino adults in US. Then, Luminar would extract data from social media tools such as blogs, tweets and YouTube. Together, this would generate, from preliminary reckoning, about 125 terabyte of living, breathing data which could be analyzed in real time. Going forward, the data would be ingested into Hortonworks along with algorithms such as MapReduce and Luminar customized ones to profile consumer types with a high degree of precision. This fundamental technical platform for Big Data analytic should be established and tested to be reliable by end of year 1. Medium term: 1 year -3 years Starting this period, Luminar should invite representatives from each internal department and work together on the development of both external customer facing products as well as the internal customer facing products. Those representatives should be people welcome to any change and they would also be responsible for acting as the change agents for their corresponding departments. Those 3 products targeting at external customers should receive higher priority. By end of mid of year 2, the prototypes of the 3 products should be ready for test. Sales team should working closely with Luminar and get involved in the product development process. The reason why promoting sales team involvement is that it would offer enough information and training for them to change their messages to pitch customers. And by end of year 2, the final delivery of these 3 products should be ready for any potential business opportunity to generating revenue. After the external products were developed, Luminar would shift their efforts to focus on developing those internal products. Those representatives from each department should be involved within the development process and feed update back to their own departments. By end of the mid of year 3, prototypes for internal products should be ready for testing and initial training. By end of the year 3, the final internal products should be in production and full  scale of training should be in place. Organizational change effort could be started parallelly in this period with the product development. Successful transformational change must have supports from the c-level, as a result, Rios should work with Ulloa to secure buy-in within board of directors and executives to support the organization culture change. Kotter’s 8 steps could be used to direct the change process. By end of this period, Luminar should be able to successfully secure large scale internal buy-in and would offer them a health and sustainable environment for future growth. Long term: 3 – 5 years In this long term period, with further adoption of internal products within various departments, analytical DNA should started to spread over through word of mouth, performance dashboards and etc. The culture change process should also benefit from the above achievement. For Luminar, its primary objectives in this term would be maintain and improve both the external and internal products. At the same time, Luminar would focus on revenue growth and work hard to achieve that 10 percent of total revenues of Entravision by end of the fifth year. If Luminar turned out to be a successful corporate entrepreneurship adventure, Entravision should make Luminar as an example in the future to leverage another corporate entrepreneurship to facing any future revolutionary industry change.

Advocacy Case Study Essay

In this article it speaks about how teachers within the Atlanta Public School System have become the greatest advocates for their students. The author says that one of the greatest blessings of his professional life is the opportunity that he has to speak with hundreds and hundreds of his Special Education colleagues. Before and after his seminars, Lavoie has had conversations and discussions with countless teachers from coast to coast and everywhere in between. These conversations have truly been a joy, and these on-the-fly exchanges has given him an updated perspective on the changes and challenges in America’s classrooms. These conversations are an ongoing source of information and inspiration for Lavoie. They have confirmed his long-held belief that some of the finest people on the planet are toiling daily in America’s classroom and particularly within Special Education programs. Most of the conversations amongst the teachers are reassuring and reinforcing, but occa sionally there are conversations that are troubling and disheartening. The disturbing conversations remind Lavoie that the inclusion battles of the 1970s continue in many American school districts and that the rights of struggling kids continue to be violated and ignored. Lavoie worked as a school administrator for thirty years and has always felt that teachers’ willingness to defend and advocate for students should be encouraged and reinforced not discouraged and criticized. One of the most sacred responsibilities of a Special Education teacher is to advocate for his/ her students and their needs. We need to be voices for the voiceless. Regardless of grade level. For the past several years, Lavoie have delivered a seminar entitled â€Å"Other People’s Kids: The Ethics of Special Education.† In this workshop, he outlines a dozen basic ethical tenets that must be understood and followed by those of us who toil in the vineyards of Special Education. These tenets involve confidentiality, collaboration and parental interactions. But the main emphasis of the workshop is the premise that â€Å"The professional’s PRIMARY loyalty and commitment is to the CHILD.† Be an advocate for your students. If you don’t who will. In a perfect world, no teacher should be criticized for defending, protecting, or advocating for a child. But, the world is imperfect and teachers often find that they are asked to compromise students’ servi ces in order to maintain budgets and other real-world  constraints. Teachers face this conundrum daily. But as we all know some things that are simple are not always easy. Teachers are encouraged to please be the number one advocate for your students. References Lavoie, R. (2014). Fighting The Good Fight. How to Advocate for Your Students without losing your job.

The Wolof People of Senegal essays

The Wolof People of Senegal essays The Wolof people are located on the Coast of Senegal. Their native language is Wolof and their population is approximately 2.5 million. The Wolof people have been around since the 12th or 13th century. After the defeat of the Empire of Ghana around the 11th century, the Wolof people migrated to the coast from Mali. The history of the Wolof has been saved through the griots who recited oral praise songs. The religion of the Wolof is predominately Muslim. This includes praying to Allah five times a day, volunteering and giving gifts to the needy, observance of Ramadan, and a trip to Mecca. Other beliefs of Wolof are that there are good and evil spirits. They believe that the evil spirits live in bushes and tall trees in the middle of the village and that amulets are capable of protecting them from the spirits. Historically, Wolof were ruled by several powerful men who were from high ranking lineages based on the length of time that they resided in the area. The high ranking people elected a supreme leader. Local chiefs were appointed by the leader and paid their allegiance to him by maintaining order in the hinterlands and collecting taxes and tributes. The Wolof can be divided into three classes: the freeborn, those born into slavery, and the artisans. Many people settled in cities working as merchants, teachers, or government officials. However most of them still live in rural areas and work as peasant farmers. A typical Wolof village consists of several hundred people living in family compounds that are grouped around a central village square. The compounds contain houses made of mud or reed. It consists of a compound head, his wives, and their children. Other relatives including aunts, uncles and cousins reside there as well as temporary field hands. The freeborn are the royal lineages and great warrior families. They are the top level of society. These noble families usually engaged in wars to protect and...

CO2 essays

CO2 essays It would be very interesting to see whether CO2 can be detected in the everyday air that we breathe. If it can be detected, then what does that say about its effects on the individuals who are breathing that same air on a regular and consistent basis? A discovery like this could lead to such questions as; will the long-term effects of the detected CO2 in the air be a major cause of disease or illness on the nearby population, and if it is, what type of measures can be taken to alleviate this potential threat. The first event that should take place upon such a discovery is to determine the source of the CO2 and then determine what needs to happen in order to clean up the air. Some of the measures that could be taken consist of attempts to clean up the air by raising the standards on levels of CO2 dispensed into the air by the sources. In this case however, the suspected CO2 was not detected as the choice of outside air turned the balloon blue which showed there was no CO2 contained therein. This is actually a good thing because it shows that many of the standards implemented in the past constraining the various sources of pollution have been quite effective. A study was conducted to compare the various levels of CO2 in different samples including; outside air (YC), wine bottle (WB), car exhaust (CA), room air (RA) and human breath (HB). In effect, what was being sought was a determination of not only the levels of CO2, but how those levels were created or came to pass, and if such levels would be dangerous to those who came in contact with them, or if they would only have a benign affect on anyone coming in contact with them. The methodology of the experiment was conducted by collecting the samples and then exposing those samples (one at a time) to a limited amount of Bromothymol Blue (BTB) contained in a balloon in which the samples were also placed. Depending on the amount of acids present in the var...

Chapter 13 Madeye Moody

â€Å"Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures†¦damn it, we’re still with the Slytherins†¦.† â€Å"Double Divination this afternoon,† Harry groaned, looking down. Divination was his least favorite subject, apart from Potions. Professor Trelawney kept predicting Harry’s death, which he found extremely annoying. â€Å"You should have given it up like me, shouldn’t you?† said Hermione briskly, buttering herself some toast. â€Å"Then you’d be doing something sensible like Arithmancy.† â€Å"You’re eating again, I notice,† said Ron, watching Hermione adding liberal amounts of jam to her toast too. â€Å"I’ve decided there are better ways of making a stand about elf rights,† said Hermione haughtily. â€Å"Yeah†¦and you were hungry,† said Ron, grinning. There was a sudden rustling noise above them, and a hundred owls came soaring through the open windows carrying the morning mail. Instinctively, Harry looked up, but there was no sign of white among the mass of brown and gray. The owls circled the tables, looking for the people to whom their letters and packages were addressed. A large tawny owl soared down to Neville Longbottom and deposited a parcel into his lap – Neville almost always forgot to pack something. On the other side of the Hall Draco Malfoy’s eagle owl had landed on his shoulder, carrying what looked like his usual supply of sweets and cakes from home. Trying to ignore the sinking feeling of disappointment in his stomach, Harry returned to his porridge. Was it possible that something had happened to Hedwig, and that Sirius hadn’t even got his letter? His preoccupation lasted all the way across the sodden vegetable patch until they arrived in greenhouse three, but here he was distracted by Professor Sprout showing the class the ugliest plants Harry had ever seen. Indeed, they looked less like plants than thick, black, giant slugs, protruding vertically out of the soil. Each was squirming slightly and had a number of large, shiny swellings upon it, which appeared to be full of liquid. â€Å"Bubotubers,† Professor Sprout told them briskly. â€Å"They need squeezing. You will collect the pus -â€Å" â€Å"The what?† said Seamus Finnigan, sounding revolted. â€Å"Pus, Finnigan, pus,† said Professor Sprout, â€Å"and it’s extremely valuable, so don’t waste it. You will collect the pus, I say, in these bottles. Wear your dragon-hide gloves; it can do funny things to the skin when undiluted, bubotuber pus.† Squeezing the bubotubers was disgusting, but oddly satisfying. As each swelling was popped, a large amount of thick yellowish-green liquid burst forth, which smelled strongly of petrol. They caught it in the bottles as Professor Sprout had indicated, and by the end of the lesson had collected several pints. â€Å"This’ll keep Madam Pomfrey happy,† said Professor Sprout, stoppering the last bottle with a cork. â€Å"An excellent remedy for the more stubborn forms of acne, bubotuber pus. Should stop students resorting to desperate measures to rid themselves of pimples.† â€Å"Like poor Eloise Midgen,† said Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff, in a hushed voice. â€Å"She tried to curse hers off.† â€Å"Silly girl,† said Professor Sprout, shaking her head. â€Å"But Madam Pomfrey fixed her nose back on in the end.† A booming bell echoed from the castle across the wet grounds, signaling the end of the lesson, and the class separated; the Hufflepuffs climbing the stone steps for Transfiguration, and the Gryffindors heading in the other direction, down the sloping lawn toward Hagrid’s small wooden cabin, which stood on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid was standing outside his hut, one hand on the collar of his enormous black boarhound, Fang. There were several open wooden crates on the ground at his feet, and Fang was whimpering and straining at his collar, apparently keen to investigate the contents more closely. As they drew nearer, an odd rattling noise reached their ears, punctuated by what sounded like minor explosions. â€Å"Mornin’!† Hagrid said, grinning at Harry, Ron, and Hermione. â€Å"Be’er wait fer the Slytherins, they won’ want ter miss this – Blast-Ended Skrewts!† â€Å"Come again?† said Ron. Hagrid pointed down into the crates. â€Å"Eurgh!† squealed Lavender Brown, jumping backward. â€Å"Eurgh† just about summed up the Blast-Ended Skrewts in Harry’s opinion. They looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. There were about a hundred of them in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a very powerful smell of rotting fish. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches. â€Å"On’y jus’ hatched,† said Hagrid proudly, â€Å"so yeh’ll be able ter raise ’em yerselves! Thought we’d make a bit of a project of it!† â€Å"And why would we want to raise them?† said a cold voice. The Slytherins had arrived. The speaker was Draco Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling appreciatively at his words. Hagrid looked stumped at the question. â€Å"I mean, what do they do?† asked Malfoy. â€Å"What is the point of them?† Hagrid opened his mouth, apparently thinking hard; there was a few seconds’ pause, then he said roughly, â€Å"Tha’s next lesson, Malfoy. Yer jus’ feedin’ ’em today. Now, yeh’ll wan’ ter try ’em on a few diff’rent things – I’ve never had ’em before, not sure what they’ll go fer – I got ant eggs an’ frog livers an’ a bit o’ grass snake – just try ’em out with a bit of each.† â€Å"First pus and now this,† muttered Seamus. Nothing but deep affection for Hagrid could have made Harry, Ron, and Hermione pick up squelchy handfuls of frog liver and lower them into the crates to tempt the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Harry couldn’t suppress the suspicion that the whole thing was entirely pointless, because the skrewts didn’t seem to have mouths. â€Å"Ouch!† yelled Dean Thomas after about ten minutes. â€Å"It got me.† Hagrid hurried over to him, looking anxious. â€Å"Its end exploded!† said Dean angrily, showing Hagrid a burn on his hand. â€Å"Ah, yeah, that can happen when they blast off,† said Hagrid, nodding. â€Å"Eurgh!† said Lavender Brown again. â€Å"Eurgh, Hagrid, what’s that pointy thing on it?† â€Å"Ah, some of ’em have got stings,† said Hagrid enthusiastically (Lavender quickly withdrew her hand from the box). â€Å"I reckon they’re the males†¦.The females’ve got sorta sucker things on their bellies†¦.I think they might be ter suck blood.† â€Å"Well, I can certainly see why we’re trying to keep them alive,† said Malfoy sarcastically. â€Å"Who wouldn’t want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?† â€Å"Just because they’re not very pretty, it doesn’t mean they’re not useful,† Hermione snapped. â€Å"Dragon blood’s amazingly magical, but you wouldn’t want a dragon for a pet, would you?† Harry and Ron grinned at Hagrid, who gave them a furtive smile from behind his bushy beard. Hagrid would have liked nothing better than a pet dragon, as Harry, Ron, and Hermione knew only too well – he had owned one for a brief period during their first year, a vicious Norwegian Ridgeback by the name of Norbert. Hagrid simply loved monstrous creatures, the more lethal, the better. â€Å"Well, at least the skrewts are small,† said Ron as they made their way back up to the castle for lunch an hour later. â€Å"They are now,† said Hermione in an exasperated voice, â€Å"but once Hagrid’s found out what they eat, I expect they’ll be six feet long.† â€Å"Well, that won’t matter if they turn out to cure seasickness or something, will it?† said Ron, grinning slyly at her. â€Å"You know perfectly well I only said that to shut Malfoy up,† said Hermione. â€Å"As a matter of fact I think he’s right. The best thing to do would be to stamp on the lot of them before they start attacking us all.† They sat down at the Gryffindor table and helped themselves to lamb chops and potatoes. Hermione began to eat so fast that Harry and Ron stared at her. â€Å"Er – is this the new stand on elf rights?† said Ron. â€Å"You’re going to make yourself puke instead?† â€Å"No,† said Hermione, with as much dignity as she could muster with her mouth bulging with sprouts. â€Å"I just want to get to the library.† â€Å"What?† said Ron in disbelief. â€Å"Hermione – it’s the first day back! We haven’t even got homework yet!† Hermione shrugged and continued to shovel down her food as though she had not eaten for days. Then she leapt to her feet, said, â€Å"See you at dinner!† and departed at high speed. When the bell rang to signal the start of afternoon lessons, Harry and Ron set off for North Tower where, at the top of a tightly spiraling staircase, a silver stepladder led to a circular trapdoor in the ceiling, and the room where Professor Trelawney lived. The familiar sweet perfume spreading from the fire met their nostrils as they emerged at the top of the stepladder. As ever, the curtains were all closed; the circular room was bathed in a dim reddish light cast by the many lamps, which were all draped with scarves and shawls. Harry and Ron walked through the mass of occupied chintz chairs and poufs that cluttered the room, and sat down at the same small circular table. â€Å"Good day,† said the misty voice of Professor Trelawney right behind Harry, making him jump. A very thin woman with enormous glasses that made her eyes appear far too large for her face, Professor Trelawney was peering down at Harry with the tragic expression she always wore whenever she saw him. The usual large amount of beads, chains, and bangles glittered upon her person in the firelight. â€Å"You are preoccupied, my dear,† she said mournfully to Harry. â€Å"My inner eye sees past your brave face to the troubled soul within. And I regret to say that your worries are not baseless. I see difficult times ahead for you, alas†¦most difficult†¦I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass†¦.and perhaps sooner than you think†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. Ron rolled his eyes at Harry, who looked stonily back. Professor Trelawney swept past them and seated herself in a large winged armchair before the fire, facing the class. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who deeply admired Professor Trelawney, were sitting on poufs very close to her. â€Å"My dears, it is time for us to consider the stars,† she said. â€Å"The movements of the planets and the mysterious portents they reveal only to those who understand the steps of the celestial dance. Human destiny may be deciphered by the planetary rays, which intermingle†¦.† But Harry’s thoughts had drifted. The perfumed fire always made him feel sleepy and dull-witted, and Professor Trelawney’s rambling talks on fortune-telling never held him exactly spellbound – though he couldn’t help thinking about what she had just said to him. â€Å"I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass†¦Ã¢â‚¬  But Hermione was right, Harry thought irritably, Professor Trelawney really was an old fraud. He wasn’t dreading anything at the moment at all†¦well, unless you counted his fears that Sirius had been caught†¦but what did Professor Trelawney know? He had long since come to the conclusion that her brand of fortunetelling was really no more than lucky guesswork and a spooky manner. Except, of course, for that time at the end of last term, when she had made the prediction about Voldemort rising again†¦and Dumbledore himself had said that he thought that trance had been genuine, when Harry had described it to him. â€Å"Harry!† Ron muttered. â€Å"What?† Harry looked around; the whole class was staring at him. He sat up straight; he had been almost dozing off, lost in the heat and his thoughts. â€Å"I was saying, my dear, that you were clearly born under the baleful influence of Saturn,† said Professor Trelawney, a faint note of resentment in her voice at the fact that he had obviously not been hanging on her words. â€Å"Born under – what, sorry?† said Harry. â€Å"Saturn, dear, the planet Saturn!† said Professor Trelawney, sounding definitely irritated that he wasn’t riveted by this news. â€Å"I was saying that Saturn was surely in a position of power in the heavens at the moment of your birth†¦.Your dark hair†¦your mean stature†¦tragic losses so young in life†¦I think I am right in saying, my dear, that you were born in midwinter?† â€Å"No,† said Harry, â€Å"I was born in July.† Ron hastily turned his laugh into a hacking cough. Half an hour later, each of them had been given a complicated circular chart, and was attempting to fill in the position of the planets at their moment of birth. It was dull work, requiring much consultation of timetables and calculation of angles. â€Å"I’ve got two Neptunes here,† said Harry after a while, frowning down at his piece of parchment, â€Å"that can’t be right, can it?† â€Å"Aaaaah,† said Ron, imitating Professor Trelawney’s mystical whisper, â€Å"when two Neptunes appear in the sky, it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Harry†¦.† Seamus and Dean, who were working nearby, sniggered loudly, though not loudly enough to mask the excited squeals from Lavender Brown – â€Å"Oh Professor, look! I think I’ve got an unaspected planet! Oooh, which one’s that, Professor?† â€Å"It is Uranus, my dear,† said Professor Trelawney, peering down at the chart. â€Å"Can I have a look at Uranus too, Lavender?† said Ron. Most unfortunately, Professor Trelawney heard him, and it was this, perhaps, that made her give them so much homework at the end of the class. â€Å"A detailed analysis of the way the planetary movements in the coming month will affect you, with reference to your personal chart,† she snapped, sounding much more like Professor McGonagall than her usual airy-fairy self. â€Å"I want it ready to hand in next Monday, and no excuses!† â€Å"Miserable old bat,† said Ron bitterly as they joined the crowds descending the staircases back to the Great Hall and dinner. â€Å"That’ll take all weekend, that will†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Lots of homework?† said Hermione brightly, catching up with them. â€Å"Professor Vector didn’t give us any at all!† â€Å"Well, bully for Professor Vector,† said Ron moodily. They reached the entrance hall, which was packed with people queuing for dinner. They had just joined the end of the line, when a loud voice rang out behind them. â€Å"Weasley! Hey, Weasley!† Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were standing there, each looking thoroughly pleased about something. â€Å"What?† said Ron shortly. â€Å"Your dad’s in the paper, Weasley!† said Malfoy, brandishing a copy of the Daily Prophet and speaking very loudly, so that everyone in the packed entrance hall could hear. â€Å"Listen to this! FURTHER MISTAKES AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC It seems as though the Ministry of Magic’s troubles are not yet at an end, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Recently under fire for its poor crowd control at the Quidditch World Cup, and still unable to account for the disappearance of one of its witches, the Ministry was plunged into fresh embarrassment yesterday by the antics of Arnold Weasley, of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office.† Malfoy looked up. â€Å"Imagine them not even getting his name right, Weasley. It’s almost as though he’s a complete nonentity, isn’t it?† he crowed. Everyone in the entrance hall was listening now. Malfoy straightened the paper with a flourish and read on: Arnold Weasley, who was charged with possession of a flying car two years ago, was yesterday involved in a tussle with several Muggle law-keepers (â€Å"policemen†) over a number of highly aggressive dustbins. Mr. Weasley appears to have rushed to the aid of â€Å"Mad-Eye† Moody, the aged ex-Auror who retired from the Ministry when no longer able to tell the difference between a handshake and attempted murder. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Weasley found, upon arrival at Mr. Moody’s heavily guarded house, that Mr. Moody had once again raised a false alarm. Mr. Weasley was forced to modify several memories before he could escape from the policemen, but refused to answer Daily Prophet questions about why he had involved the Ministry in such an undignified and potentially embarrassing scene. â€Å"And there’s a picture, Weasley!† said Malfoy, flipping the paper over and holding it up. â€Å"A picture of your parents outside their house – if you can call it a house! Your mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn’t she?† Ron was shaking with fury. Everyone was staring at him. â€Å"Get stuffed, Malfoy,† said Harry. â€Å"C’mon, Ron†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Oh yeah, you were staying with them this summer, weren’t you, Potter?† sneered Malfoy. â€Å"So tell me, is his mother really that porky, or is it just the picture?† â€Å"You know your mother, Malfoy?† said Harry – both he and Hermione had grabbed the back of Ron’s robes to stop him from launching himself at Malfoy – â€Å"that expression she’s got, like she’s got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?† Malfoy’s pale face went slightly pink. â€Å"Don’t you dare insult my mother, Potter.† â€Å"Keep your fat mouth shut, then,† said Harry, turning away. BANG! Several people screamed – Harry felt something white-hot graze the side of his face – he plunged his hand into his robes for his wand, but before he’d even touched it, he heard a second loud BANG, and a roar that echoed through the entrance hall. â€Å"OH NO YOU DON’T, LADDIE!† Harry spun around. Professor Moody was limping down the marble staircase. His wand was out and it was pointing right at a pure white ferret, which was shivering on the stone-flagged floor, exactly where Malfoy had been standing. There was a terrified silence in the entrance hall. Nobody but Moody was moving a muscle. Moody turned to look at Harry – at least, his normal eye was looking at Harry; the other one was pointing into the back of his head. â€Å"Did he get you?† Moody growled. His voice was low and gravelly. â€Å"No,† said Harry, â€Å"missed.† â€Å"LEAVE IT!† Moody shouted. â€Å"Leave – what?† Harry said, bewildered. â€Å"Not you – him!† Moody growled, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Crabbe, who had just frozen, about to pick up the white ferret. It seemed that Moody’s rolling eye was magical and could see out of the back of his head. Moody started to limp toward Crabbe, Goyle, and the ferret, which gave a terrified squeak and took off, streaking toward the dungeons. â€Å"I don’t think so!† roared Moody, pointing his wand at the ferret again – it flew ten feet into the air, fell with a smack to the floor, and then bounced upward once more. â€Å"I don’t like people who attack when their opponent’s back’s turned,† growled Moody as the ferret bounced higher and higher, squealing in pain. â€Å"Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The ferret flew through the air, its legs and tail flailing helplessly. â€Å"Never – do – that – again -† said Moody, speaking each word as the ferret hit the stone floor and bounced upward again. â€Å"Professor Moody!† said a shocked voice. Professor McGonagall was coming down the marble staircase with her arms full of books. â€Å"Hello, Professor McGonagall,† said Moody calmly, bouncing the ferret still higher. â€Å"What – what are you doing?† said Professor McGonagall, her eyes following the bouncing ferret’s progress through the air. â€Å"Teaching,† said Moody. â€Å"Teach – Moody, is that a student?† shrieked Professor McGonagall, the books spilling out of her arms. â€Å"Yep,† said Moody. â€Å"No!† cried Professor McGonagall, running down the stairs and pulling out her wand; a moment later, with a loud snapping noise, Draco Malfoy had reappeared, lying in a heap on the floor with his sleek blond hair all over his now brilliantly pink face. He got to his feet, wincing. â€Å"Moody, we never use Transfiguration as a punishment!† said Professor McGonagall wealdy. â€Å"Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that?† â€Å"He might’ve mentioned it, yeah,† said Moody, scratching his chin unconcernedly, â€Å"but I thought a good sharp shock -â€Å" â€Å"We give detentions, Moody! Or speak to the offender’s Head of House!† â€Å"I’ll do that, then,† said Moody, staring at Malfoy with great dislike. Malfoy, whose pale eyes were still watering with pain and humiliation, looked malevolently up at Moody and muttered something in which the words â€Å"my father† were distinguishable. â€Å"Oh yeah?† said Moody quietly, limping forward a few steps, the dull clunk of his wooden leg echoing around the hall. â€Å"Well, I know your father of old, boy†¦.You tell him Moody’s keeping a close eye on his son†¦you tell him that from me†¦.Now, your Head of House’ll be Snape, will it?† â€Å"Yes,† said Malfoy resentfully. â€Å"Another old friend,† growled Moody. â€Å"I’ve been looking forward to a chat with old Snape†¦.Come on, you†¦Ã¢â‚¬  And he seized Malfoy’s upper arm and marched him off toward the dungeons. Professor McGonagall stared anxiously after them for a few moments, then waved her wand at her fallen books, causing them to soar up into the air and back into her arms. â€Å"Don’t talk to me,† Ron said quietly to Harry and Hermione as they sat down at the Gryffindor table a few minutes later, surrounded by excited talk on all sides about what had just happened. â€Å"Why not?† said Hermione in surprise. â€Å"Because I want to fix that in my memory forever,† said Ron, his eyes closed and an uplifted expression on his face. â€Å"Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret.† Harry and Hermione both laughed, and Hermione began doling beef casserole onto each of their plates. â€Å"He could have really hurt Malfoy, though,† she said. â€Å"It was good, really, that Professor McGonagall stopped it -â€Å" â€Å"Hermione!† said Ron furiously, his eyes snapping open again, â€Å"you’re ruining the best moment of my life!† Hermione made an impatient noise and began to eat at top speed again. â€Å"Don’t tell me you’re going back to the library this evening?† said Harry, watching her. â€Å"Got to,† said Hermione thickly. â€Å"Loads to do.† â€Å"But you told us Professor Vector -â€Å" â€Å"It’s not schoolwork,† she said. Within five minutes, she had cleared her plate and departed. No sooner had she gone than her seat was taken by Fred Weasley. â€Å"Moody!† he said. â€Å"How cool is he?† â€Å"Beyond cool,† said George, sitting down opposite Fred. â€Å"Supercool,† said the twins’ best friend, Lee Jordan, sliding into the seat beside George. â€Å"We had him this afternoon,† he told Harry and Ron. â€Å"What was it like?† said Harry eagerly. Fred, George, and Lee exchanged looks full of meaning. â€Å"Never had a lesson like it,† said Fred. â€Å"He knows, man,† said Lee. â€Å"Knows what?† said Ron, leaning forward. â€Å"Knows what it’s like to be out there doing it,† said George impressively. â€Å"Doing what?† said Harry. â€Å"Fighting the Dark Arts,† said Fred. â€Å"He’s seen it all,† said George. â€Å"‘Mazing,† said Lee. Ron dived into his bag for his schedule. â€Å"We haven’t got him till Thursday!† he said in a disappointed voice. Chapter 13 Madeye Moody â€Å"Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures†¦damn it, we’re still with the Slytherins†¦.† â€Å"Double Divination this afternoon,† Harry groaned, looking down. Divination was his least favorite subject, apart from Potions. Professor Trelawney kept predicting Harry’s death, which he found extremely annoying. â€Å"You should have given it up like me, shouldn’t you?† said Hermione briskly, buttering herself some toast. â€Å"Then you’d be doing something sensible like Arithmancy.† â€Å"You’re eating again, I notice,† said Ron, watching Hermione adding liberal amounts of jam to her toast too. â€Å"I’ve decided there are better ways of making a stand about elf rights,† said Hermione haughtily. â€Å"Yeah†¦and you were hungry,† said Ron, grinning. There was a sudden rustling noise above them, and a hundred owls came soaring through the open windows carrying the morning mail. Instinctively, Harry looked up, but there was no sign of white among the mass of brown and gray. The owls circled the tables, looking for the people to whom their letters and packages were addressed. A large tawny owl soared down to Neville Longbottom and deposited a parcel into his lap – Neville almost always forgot to pack something. On the other side of the Hall Draco Malfoy’s eagle owl had landed on his shoulder, carrying what looked like his usual supply of sweets and cakes from home. Trying to ignore the sinking feeling of disappointment in his stomach, Harry returned to his porridge. Was it possible that something had happened to Hedwig, and that Sirius hadn’t even got his letter? His preoccupation lasted all the way across the sodden vegetable patch until they arrived in greenhouse three, but here he was distracted by Professor Sprout showing the class the ugliest plants Harry had ever seen. Indeed, they looked less like plants than thick, black, giant slugs, protruding vertically out of the soil. Each was squirming slightly and had a number of large, shiny swellings upon it, which appeared to be full of liquid. â€Å"Bubotubers,† Professor Sprout told them briskly. â€Å"They need squeezing. You will collect the pus -â€Å" â€Å"The what?† said Seamus Finnigan, sounding revolted. â€Å"Pus, Finnigan, pus,† said Professor Sprout, â€Å"and it’s extremely valuable, so don’t waste it. You will collect the pus, I say, in these bottles. Wear your dragon-hide gloves; it can do funny things to the skin when undiluted, bubotuber pus.† Squeezing the bubotubers was disgusting, but oddly satisfying. As each swelling was popped, a large amount of thick yellowish-green liquid burst forth, which smelled strongly of petrol. They caught it in the bottles as Professor Sprout had indicated, and by the end of the lesson had collected several pints. â€Å"This’ll keep Madam Pomfrey happy,† said Professor Sprout, stoppering the last bottle with a cork. â€Å"An excellent remedy for the more stubborn forms of acne, bubotuber pus. Should stop students resorting to desperate measures to rid themselves of pimples.† â€Å"Like poor Eloise Midgen,† said Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff, in a hushed voice. â€Å"She tried to curse hers off.† â€Å"Silly girl,† said Professor Sprout, shaking her head. â€Å"But Madam Pomfrey fixed her nose back on in the end.† A booming bell echoed from the castle across the wet grounds, signaling the end of the lesson, and the class separated; the Hufflepuffs climbing the stone steps for Transfiguration, and the Gryffindors heading in the other direction, down the sloping lawn toward Hagrid’s small wooden cabin, which stood on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid was standing outside his hut, one hand on the collar of his enormous black boarhound, Fang. There were several open wooden crates on the ground at his feet, and Fang was whimpering and straining at his collar, apparently keen to investigate the contents more closely. As they drew nearer, an odd rattling noise reached their ears, punctuated by what sounded like minor explosions. â€Å"Mornin’!† Hagrid said, grinning at Harry, Ron, and Hermione. â€Å"Be’er wait fer the Slytherins, they won’ want ter miss this – Blast-Ended Skrewts!† â€Å"Come again?† said Ron. Hagrid pointed down into the crates. â€Å"Eurgh!† squealed Lavender Brown, jumping backward. â€Å"Eurgh† just about summed up the Blast-Ended Skrewts in Harry’s opinion. They looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. There were about a hundred of them in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a very powerful smell of rotting fish. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches. â€Å"On’y jus’ hatched,† said Hagrid proudly, â€Å"so yeh’ll be able ter raise ’em yerselves! Thought we’d make a bit of a project of it!† â€Å"And why would we want to raise them?† said a cold voice. The Slytherins had arrived. The speaker was Draco Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling appreciatively at his words. Hagrid looked stumped at the question. â€Å"I mean, what do they do?† asked Malfoy. â€Å"What is the point of them?† Hagrid opened his mouth, apparently thinking hard; there was a few seconds’ pause, then he said roughly, â€Å"Tha’s next lesson, Malfoy. Yer jus’ feedin’ ’em today. Now, yeh’ll wan’ ter try ’em on a few diff’rent things – I’ve never had ’em before, not sure what they’ll go fer – I got ant eggs an’ frog livers an’ a bit o’ grass snake – just try ’em out with a bit of each.† â€Å"First pus and now this,† muttered Seamus. Nothing but deep affection for Hagrid could have made Harry, Ron, and Hermione pick up squelchy handfuls of frog liver and lower them into the crates to tempt the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Harry couldn’t suppress the suspicion that the whole thing was entirely pointless, because the skrewts didn’t seem to have mouths. â€Å"Ouch!† yelled Dean Thomas after about ten minutes. â€Å"It got me.† Hagrid hurried over to him, looking anxious. â€Å"Its end exploded!† said Dean angrily, showing Hagrid a burn on his hand. â€Å"Ah, yeah, that can happen when they blast off,† said Hagrid, nodding. â€Å"Eurgh!† said Lavender Brown again. â€Å"Eurgh, Hagrid, what’s that pointy thing on it?† â€Å"Ah, some of ’em have got stings,† said Hagrid enthusiastically (Lavender quickly withdrew her hand from the box). â€Å"I reckon they’re the males†¦.The females’ve got sorta sucker things on their bellies†¦.I think they might be ter suck blood.† â€Å"Well, I can certainly see why we’re trying to keep them alive,† said Malfoy sarcastically. â€Å"Who wouldn’t want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?† â€Å"Just because they’re not very pretty, it doesn’t mean they’re not useful,† Hermione snapped. â€Å"Dragon blood’s amazingly magical, but you wouldn’t want a dragon for a pet, would you?† Harry and Ron grinned at Hagrid, who gave them a furtive smile from behind his bushy beard. Hagrid would have liked nothing better than a pet dragon, as Harry, Ron, and Hermione knew only too well – he had owned one for a brief period during their first year, a vicious Norwegian Ridgeback by the name of Norbert. Hagrid simply loved monstrous creatures, the more lethal, the better. â€Å"Well, at least the skrewts are small,† said Ron as they made their way back up to the castle for lunch an hour later. â€Å"They are now,† said Hermione in an exasperated voice, â€Å"but once Hagrid’s found out what they eat, I expect they’ll be six feet long.† â€Å"Well, that won’t matter if they turn out to cure seasickness or something, will it?† said Ron, grinning slyly at her. â€Å"You know perfectly well I only said that to shut Malfoy up,† said Hermione. â€Å"As a matter of fact I think he’s right. The best thing to do would be to stamp on the lot of them before they start attacking us all.† They sat down at the Gryffindor table and helped themselves to lamb chops and potatoes. Hermione began to eat so fast that Harry and Ron stared at her. â€Å"Er – is this the new stand on elf rights?† said Ron. â€Å"You’re going to make yourself puke instead?† â€Å"No,† said Hermione, with as much dignity as she could muster with her mouth bulging with sprouts. â€Å"I just want to get to the library.† â€Å"What?† said Ron in disbelief. â€Å"Hermione – it’s the first day back! We haven’t even got homework yet!† Hermione shrugged and continued to shovel down her food as though she had not eaten for days. Then she leapt to her feet, said, â€Å"See you at dinner!† and departed at high speed. When the bell rang to signal the start of afternoon lessons, Harry and Ron set off for North Tower where, at the top of a tightly spiraling staircase, a silver stepladder led to a circular trapdoor in the ceiling, and the room where Professor Trelawney lived. The familiar sweet perfume spreading from the fire met their nostrils as they emerged at the top of the stepladder. As ever, the curtains were all closed; the circular room was bathed in a dim reddish light cast by the many lamps, which were all draped with scarves and shawls. Harry and Ron walked through the mass of occupied chintz chairs and poufs that cluttered the room, and sat down at the same small circular table. â€Å"Good day,† said the misty voice of Professor Trelawney right behind Harry, making him jump. A very thin woman with enormous glasses that made her eyes appear far too large for her face, Professor Trelawney was peering down at Harry with the tragic expression she always wore whenever she saw him. The usual large amount of beads, chains, and bangles glittered upon her person in the firelight. â€Å"You are preoccupied, my dear,† she said mournfully to Harry. â€Å"My inner eye sees past your brave face to the troubled soul within. And I regret to say that your worries are not baseless. I see difficult times ahead for you, alas†¦most difficult†¦I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass†¦.and perhaps sooner than you think†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. Ron rolled his eyes at Harry, who looked stonily back. Professor Trelawney swept past them and seated herself in a large winged armchair before the fire, facing the class. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who deeply admired Professor Trelawney, were sitting on poufs very close to her. â€Å"My dears, it is time for us to consider the stars,† she said. â€Å"The movements of the planets and the mysterious portents they reveal only to those who understand the steps of the celestial dance. Human destiny may be deciphered by the planetary rays, which intermingle†¦.† But Harry’s thoughts had drifted. The perfumed fire always made him feel sleepy and dull-witted, and Professor Trelawney’s rambling talks on fortune-telling never held him exactly spellbound – though he couldn’t help thinking about what she had just said to him. â€Å"I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass†¦Ã¢â‚¬  But Hermione was right, Harry thought irritably, Professor Trelawney really was an old fraud. He wasn’t dreading anything at the moment at all†¦well, unless you counted his fears that Sirius had been caught†¦but what did Professor Trelawney know? He had long since come to the conclusion that her brand of fortunetelling was really no more than lucky guesswork and a spooky manner. Except, of course, for that time at the end of last term, when she had made the prediction about Voldemort rising again†¦and Dumbledore himself had said that he thought that trance had been genuine, when Harry had described it to him. â€Å"Harry!† Ron muttered. â€Å"What?† Harry looked around; the whole class was staring at him. He sat up straight; he had been almost dozing off, lost in the heat and his thoughts. â€Å"I was saying, my dear, that you were clearly born under the baleful influence of Saturn,† said Professor Trelawney, a faint note of resentment in her voice at the fact that he had obviously not been hanging on her words. â€Å"Born under – what, sorry?† said Harry. â€Å"Saturn, dear, the planet Saturn!† said Professor Trelawney, sounding definitely irritated that he wasn’t riveted by this news. â€Å"I was saying that Saturn was surely in a position of power in the heavens at the moment of your birth†¦.Your dark hair†¦your mean stature†¦tragic losses so young in life†¦I think I am right in saying, my dear, that you were born in midwinter?† â€Å"No,† said Harry, â€Å"I was born in July.† Ron hastily turned his laugh into a hacking cough. Half an hour later, each of them had been given a complicated circular chart, and was attempting to fill in the position of the planets at their moment of birth. It was dull work, requiring much consultation of timetables and calculation of angles. â€Å"I’ve got two Neptunes here,† said Harry after a while, frowning down at his piece of parchment, â€Å"that can’t be right, can it?† â€Å"Aaaaah,† said Ron, imitating Professor Trelawney’s mystical whisper, â€Å"when two Neptunes appear in the sky, it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Harry†¦.† Seamus and Dean, who were working nearby, sniggered loudly, though not loudly enough to mask the excited squeals from Lavender Brown – â€Å"Oh Professor, look! I think I’ve got an unaspected planet! Oooh, which one’s that, Professor?† â€Å"It is Uranus, my dear,† said Professor Trelawney, peering down at the chart. â€Å"Can I have a look at Uranus too, Lavender?† said Ron. Most unfortunately, Professor Trelawney heard him, and it was this, perhaps, that made her give them so much homework at the end of the class. â€Å"A detailed analysis of the way the planetary movements in the coming month will affect you, with reference to your personal chart,† she snapped, sounding much more like Professor McGonagall than her usual airy-fairy self. â€Å"I want it ready to hand in next Monday, and no excuses!† â€Å"Miserable old bat,† said Ron bitterly as they joined the crowds descending the staircases back to the Great Hall and dinner. â€Å"That’ll take all weekend, that will†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Lots of homework?† said Hermione brightly, catching up with them. â€Å"Professor Vector didn’t give us any at all!† â€Å"Well, bully for Professor Vector,† said Ron moodily. They reached the entrance hall, which was packed with people queuing for dinner. They had just joined the end of the line, when a loud voice rang out behind them. â€Å"Weasley! Hey, Weasley!† Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were standing there, each looking thoroughly pleased about something. â€Å"What?† said Ron shortly. â€Å"Your dad’s in the paper, Weasley!† said Malfoy, brandishing a copy of the Daily Prophet and speaking very loudly, so that everyone in the packed entrance hall could hear. â€Å"Listen to this! FURTHER MISTAKES AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC It seems as though the Ministry of Magic’s troubles are not yet at an end, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Recently under fire for its poor crowd control at the Quidditch World Cup, and still unable to account for the disappearance of one of its witches, the Ministry was plunged into fresh embarrassment yesterday by the antics of Arnold Weasley, of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office.† Malfoy looked up. â€Å"Imagine them not even getting his name right, Weasley. It’s almost as though he’s a complete nonentity, isn’t it?† he crowed. Everyone in the entrance hall was listening now. Malfoy straightened the paper with a flourish and read on: Arnold Weasley, who was charged with possession of a flying car two years ago, was yesterday involved in a tussle with several Muggle law-keepers (â€Å"policemen†) over a number of highly aggressive dustbins. Mr. Weasley appears to have rushed to the aid of â€Å"Mad-Eye† Moody, the aged ex-Auror who retired from the Ministry when no longer able to tell the difference between a handshake and attempted murder. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Weasley found, upon arrival at Mr. Moody’s heavily guarded house, that Mr. Moody had once again raised a false alarm. Mr. Weasley was forced to modify several memories before he could escape from the policemen, but refused to answer Daily Prophet questions about why he had involved the Ministry in such an undignified and potentially embarrassing scene. â€Å"And there’s a picture, Weasley!† said Malfoy, flipping the paper over and holding it up. â€Å"A picture of your parents outside their house – if you can call it a house! Your mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn’t she?† Ron was shaking with fury. Everyone was staring at him. â€Å"Get stuffed, Malfoy,† said Harry. â€Å"C’mon, Ron†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Oh yeah, you were staying with them this summer, weren’t you, Potter?† sneered Malfoy. â€Å"So tell me, is his mother really that porky, or is it just the picture?† â€Å"You know your mother, Malfoy?† said Harry – both he and Hermione had grabbed the back of Ron’s robes to stop him from launching himself at Malfoy – â€Å"that expression she’s got, like she’s got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?† Malfoy’s pale face went slightly pink. â€Å"Don’t you dare insult my mother, Potter.† â€Å"Keep your fat mouth shut, then,† said Harry, turning away. BANG! Several people screamed – Harry felt something white-hot graze the side of his face – he plunged his hand into his robes for his wand, but before he’d even touched it, he heard a second loud BANG, and a roar that echoed through the entrance hall. â€Å"OH NO YOU DON’T, LADDIE!† Harry spun around. Professor Moody was limping down the marble staircase. His wand was out and it was pointing right at a pure white ferret, which was shivering on the stone-flagged floor, exactly where Malfoy had been standing. There was a terrified silence in the entrance hall. Nobody but Moody was moving a muscle. Moody turned to look at Harry – at least, his normal eye was looking at Harry; the other one was pointing into the back of his head. â€Å"Did he get you?† Moody growled. His voice was low and gravelly. â€Å"No,† said Harry, â€Å"missed.† â€Å"LEAVE IT!† Moody shouted. â€Å"Leave – what?† Harry said, bewildered. â€Å"Not you – him!† Moody growled, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Crabbe, who had just frozen, about to pick up the white ferret. It seemed that Moody’s rolling eye was magical and could see out of the back of his head. Moody started to limp toward Crabbe, Goyle, and the ferret, which gave a terrified squeak and took off, streaking toward the dungeons. â€Å"I don’t think so!† roared Moody, pointing his wand at the ferret again – it flew ten feet into the air, fell with a smack to the floor, and then bounced upward once more. â€Å"I don’t like people who attack when their opponent’s back’s turned,† growled Moody as the ferret bounced higher and higher, squealing in pain. â€Å"Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The ferret flew through the air, its legs and tail flailing helplessly. â€Å"Never – do – that – again -† said Moody, speaking each word as the ferret hit the stone floor and bounced upward again. â€Å"Professor Moody!† said a shocked voice. Professor McGonagall was coming down the marble staircase with her arms full of books. â€Å"Hello, Professor McGonagall,† said Moody calmly, bouncing the ferret still higher. â€Å"What – what are you doing?† said Professor McGonagall, her eyes following the bouncing ferret’s progress through the air. â€Å"Teaching,† said Moody. â€Å"Teach – Moody, is that a student?† shrieked Professor McGonagall, the books spilling out of her arms. â€Å"Yep,† said Moody. â€Å"No!† cried Professor McGonagall, running down the stairs and pulling out her wand; a moment later, with a loud snapping noise, Draco Malfoy had reappeared, lying in a heap on the floor with his sleek blond hair all over his now brilliantly pink face. He got to his feet, wincing. â€Å"Moody, we never use Transfiguration as a punishment!† said Professor McGonagall wealdy. â€Å"Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that?† â€Å"He might’ve mentioned it, yeah,† said Moody, scratching his chin unconcernedly, â€Å"but I thought a good sharp shock -â€Å" â€Å"We give detentions, Moody! Or speak to the offender’s Head of House!† â€Å"I’ll do that, then,† said Moody, staring at Malfoy with great dislike. Malfoy, whose pale eyes were still watering with pain and humiliation, looked malevolently up at Moody and muttered something in which the words â€Å"my father† were distinguishable. â€Å"Oh yeah?† said Moody quietly, limping forward a few steps, the dull clunk of his wooden leg echoing around the hall. â€Å"Well, I know your father of old, boy†¦.You tell him Moody’s keeping a close eye on his son†¦you tell him that from me†¦.Now, your Head of House’ll be Snape, will it?† â€Å"Yes,† said Malfoy resentfully. â€Å"Another old friend,† growled Moody. â€Å"I’ve been looking forward to a chat with old Snape†¦.Come on, you†¦Ã¢â‚¬  And he seized Malfoy’s upper arm and marched him off toward the dungeons. Professor McGonagall stared anxiously after them for a few moments, then waved her wand at her fallen books, causing them to soar up into the air and back into her arms. â€Å"Don’t talk to me,† Ron said quietly to Harry and Hermione as they sat down at the Gryffindor table a few minutes later, surrounded by excited talk on all sides about what had just happened. â€Å"Why not?† said Hermione in surprise. â€Å"Because I want to fix that in my memory forever,† said Ron, his eyes closed and an uplifted expression on his face. â€Å"Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret.† Harry and Hermione both laughed, and Hermione began doling beef casserole onto each of their plates. â€Å"He could have really hurt Malfoy, though,† she said. â€Å"It was good, really, that Professor McGonagall stopped it -â€Å" â€Å"Hermione!† said Ron furiously, his eyes snapping open again, â€Å"you’re ruining the best moment of my life!† Hermione made an impatient noise and began to eat at top speed again. â€Å"Don’t tell me you’re going back to the library this evening?† said Harry, watching her. â€Å"Got to,† said Hermione thickly. â€Å"Loads to do.† â€Å"But you told us Professor Vector -â€Å" â€Å"It’s not schoolwork,† she said. Within five minutes, she had cleared her plate and departed. No sooner had she gone than her seat was taken by Fred Weasley. â€Å"Moody!† he said. â€Å"How cool is he?† â€Å"Beyond cool,† said George, sitting down opposite Fred. â€Å"Supercool,† said the twins’ best friend, Lee Jordan, sliding into the seat beside George. â€Å"We had him this afternoon,† he told Harry and Ron. â€Å"What was it like?† said Harry eagerly. Fred, George, and Lee exchanged looks full of meaning. â€Å"Never had a lesson like it,† said Fred. â€Å"He knows, man,† said Lee. â€Å"Knows what?† said Ron, leaning forward. â€Å"Knows what it’s like to be out there doing it,† said George impressively. â€Å"Doing what?† said Harry. â€Å"Fighting the Dark Arts,† said Fred. â€Å"He’s seen it all,† said George. â€Å"‘Mazing,† said Lee. Ron dived into his bag for his schedule. â€Å"We haven’t got him till Thursday!† he said in a disappointed voice.