He wasn't sure whether or not he felt relieved that the headmaster had got hung up while on their way back to the classroom and therefore sent Derf on ahead so he wouldn't miss more of class, making it so he could slip back into the room and return to the seat he had left his things with quietly and mostly painlessly. Relief did come in the sheer fact that he had returned alone and therefore there was no dramatic entrance and no we for the time being. In fact, maybe the headmaster would do him a favor and not mention his name at all!
Taking his things out and arranging them on the desk, Derf ruffled his hair and maintained focus on his piece of parchment that he was not meticulously dating and writing the subject on. On, right. He also needed to do the whole name tag thing since he had not done that when class had begun. Shifting the tip of his quill from parchment to that, he wrote his name as neatly as he could...which was to say that it was not particularly neat.
Name tag done, the Hufflepuff promptly returned to the elaborate design that was the date on his piece of parchment. Just, you know, casually taking notes here and waiting for class to move on since...er...he did not feel like answering this particular question aloud.
And looking up and seeing all the multiple Maxtons made his stomach churn a bit. No offense to Maxton. The real Maxton.