"A troll professor?"

"That's right. There was a troll loose in the castle, somehow, and everyone had to be evacuated back to their common rooms."

"Well, it's a good thing none of us Hufflepuffs were at the feast then, right?"

"In a certain way."

"So, I should really be getting awarded for saving my entire house then, seeing as I was the one responsible for them not being present?"

"I wouldn't go that far."

"How about we meet halfway and not take any points off for not being there?"

"You do realize that I'm your head of house Mr. Gaunt."

"I do professor, and I'll even let you in on a secret, for not taking any house points."

"Oh? And what is this secret?"

"I'll only tell you if none of us get any points taken away."

"I can't say that I'm not a little curious now. Very well Mr. Gaunt, I won't be taking any points away, but I'll want to know where exactly all of my badgers were that night."

"Great! Now here, I'll just need you to sign this so that you're an official member, and then you can hear all of our secrets."

"The Benign Disparagers?"

"TBD for short."

"And its being led by the Dark Lord of Hufflepuff?"

"More of a joke in than anything else."

"You've managed to recruit all of Hufflepuff as well as some Gryffindors I see."

"And after today, we might just have our first professor?"

"As long as you don't plan on keeping the dark lord title then everything should be fine."

"So… you're joining?"

"I've always been a big fan of clubs."

"Did you really just invite Professor Sprout to the club?"

Corvus Gaunt looked up from where he was fiddling with Cedric's broom, the kid having let him borrow it for the Chair-Broom Mark II, and saw Ernie's bewildered expression. The rest of the students in his year were also looking at him as well as some of the second years sitting around them. Corvus made a face as he looked at them all.

"What? She was going to find out eventually. And this way, we don't lose house points and gain a new member. I win-win situation in my book."

"And she was just totally okay with the whole 'Dark Lord of Hufflepuff' bit?" Susan asked.

"Oh, not that part. Apparently, I can't be a dark lord anymore."

"That was all it took?" Flora asked.

"Eh. Professor Sprout likes clubs."

"Corvus, we're supposed to be practicing."

"I know."

"Well, what you're doing doesn't exactly fit the description of practicing."

"Yeah, just give me a second. Lift with your legs Cedric! You're legs!"

Cedric Diggory grunted as he lifted with his legs, his grip of the couch as firm as possible as he held it over the Chair-Broom Mark II. Varley was holding the broom up and Corvus was moving left and right with his wand, sticking charms going every which way. How the couch was actually going to balance on something as thin as a broom Cedric didn't know, but he was more than curious to see if it worked, and the Chair-Broom Mark One was a resounding success.

It was only a two-person couch, or just a really big chair, but it was plush and made with leather. The thing wasn't that heavy, though Cedric's arms were starting to tire a bit as Corvus continued his work. The rest of the Hufflepuff Quidditch Team eventually stopped practicing to come and watch. Gary just sighed at that and made his way over, the captain admitting that it did look interesting.

So that was how they found themselves in the middle of the pitch with a couch strapped to a broom. The Chair-Broom Mark II had been born. Corvus stood in front of it with a triumphant smile on his face as he called the broom up into the air and it shot up.

Then immediately tipped to one side and fell to the ground.

"Right, anyone have a spirit level on them?" Corvus asked.

He got a round of confused faces in return. What was a spirit level? Corvus looked at them all in confused for not knowing what it was before something dawned in his eyes and he smacked his forehead.

"Okay, new plan, uh, Wilson! Let me borrow your broom for a second."

Wilson Boothroyd, Hufflepuff Keeper, simply offered his own broom up with a bemused smile. Everyone seemed to be interested in the next iteration of the Chair-Broom and they all watched as Corvus changed the broom setup so that each broom sat on either end of the couch. Cedric's broom was now on the left side and Wilson's broom on the right.

Though, he wasn't sure how it was going to work seeing as both Cedric and Wilson had different brooms, but after a couple moments of frantic wand waving Corvus stood back and called the Chair-Broom Mark II up into the air again. This time it didn't so much shoot up into the air as it moved up in a more sedate pace. It was also wobbling slightly but it was still getting there.

"It works!" Corvus yelled as he took in his new creation. The rest of the team offered up a round of applause as Corvus sat down on the couch. His weight was on one side of it, and it was tilting slightly.

Not enough to capsize it but enough to make it look rather dangerous.

"I need a counterweight. Lucy! You're the second smallest person on the team, get on here!" Corvus shouted and patted the spot next to him.

Lucy Evenstar was indeed the next smallest person on the team. The second-year student was one of the reserve chasers and nearly as small as Corvus was. She blushed slightly as everyone's attention came upon her and after some gentle nudging, she sat next to Corvus on the Chair-Broom Mark II.

"Alright, I've got no idea if this'll actually work." Corvus admitted right before grabbed hold of the couch. "Let's hope we don't plummet to our deaths."

"Wait wha-"

Before Lucy could even finish her sentence, they were off! Cedric watched with everyone else as the Chair-Broom shot into the air at such speed that it looked dangerous. How was it even moving that fast? No, that answer was obvious, Corvus had just strapped two brooms onto the couch right in front of them.

He couldn't help but laugh as he watched the thing fly through the air. This had to be a record for the fastest a couch has moved or flown for that matter. Even from the ground he could see the death grip that Lucy had on both the couch and Corvus himself. Patricia mounted her broom with a grin and rose into the air to accompany them. Gary sighed, but Cedric spotted a small grin on the captain's face as well, so as much as he tried to hide it, he was enjoying this as well.

"It works!" Corvus yelled as he made a pass by the rest of the Hufflepuff team. He zoomed by and tilted the Chair-Broom slightly so that he could arc around them, and Lucy's death grip seemed to increase at that.

"I don't even wan to know what the Chair-Broom Mark III will look like." Gary said as they watched Corvus steer the thing around the pitch.

"Do you think we can get a long table into the air?" Wilson asked.

Cedric watched as the entire team imagined a flying long table and didn't even try to hold in his laughter at the way that Gary's face dropped as everyone else smiled. That idea was definitely going on a list somewhere. He could already see it now, a fleet of Hufflepuff long tables flying through the air.

It would be glorious.

Dave the Blind Basilisk had to reluctantly agree that Bob the Adder was useful.

The hatchling was acting as his eyes as the two of them slithered through the tunnels of Hogwarts. It had been hundreds of years since he had ventured outside and after enough prodding by Bob, Dave had given in, and the younger snake preened as he led the way.

The Young Speaker said to not kill anyone with his gaze, not that Dave could see anything, but apparently his eyes still functioned in that regard. So, Dave closed that part of his eyes, even if he didn't really see the point. Bob liked to complain about the noisy humans and the speaker's ridiculous need to keep them around. Dave understood it though, having people around was good, not that the Former Speaker ever cared about that.

The Young Speaker said to only go out at night so that they wouldn't get caught. Dave had no sense of day or night, so it was up to Bob.

"There'sss lotsss of tasssty thingsss in the foressst." Bob hissed as they moved through the tunnels and into the fresh air of the hopefully night sky.

"I sssmell them already." Dave agreed as he flicked his forked tongue through the air. "Unicornsss."

They moved towards the scent of unicorn and Dave found it curious that it was already dead. The last time he entered the forest he remembered that the unicorns moved in herds and almost never died alone. The First Speaker said as much when Dave could still see.

"There'sss another human here." Bob hissed.

Dave could smell it too. This human smelt like garlic from the kitchens. Lots of garlic. There were also hints of… decay on this human as well. It mixed in the air with the unicorn blood to produce a truly interesting scent.

"Isss it alone?" Dave asked.

"Yesss, there'sss no other humansss around."

"What isss it doing?"

"It'sss eating the unicorn."

"What?"

"Not even cooking it like the ssspeaker doesss."

Dave flicked his tongue out again to get a general sense of where this human was. More to the left if the scent of unicorn blood and garlic was any indicator. There was also the sound of slurping in the air and Dave wondered what kind of human would eat raw unicorn.

Whatever the case was, this human was free game, as the Young Speaker had said that anything within the forest was for the taking. They were in the forest and this human was therefore perfectly fine to eat. Dave didn't smell any other creatures about so this garlic smelling unicorn eating human would do.

"I want sssome of the unicorn." Bob hissed.

"You can have part of it." Dave hissed back.

"We ssshould bring the horn back for the ssspeaker."

Dave agreed to that and then it was settled. They slithered on over to the distracted human and Dave instructed for Bob to close his eyes. After that was done Dave opened his own eyes fully and snapped his jaw together to get the human's attention. Dave heard it turn and let out a strangled gasp as its eyes met Dave's own and it promptly died.

Though, there was some weird hissing and screaming to go with it, which normally didn't happen. Or maybe it had just been so long since Dave had killed anything he couldn't remember? Whatever the case was, the strange hissing and screaming went away and they were left with the dead human and the unicorn.

It all tasted like garlic.

"Isss thisss a unicorn horn?"

"It isss ssspeaker."

"Neat."

It took three days for Corvus Gaunt to realize just what had happened.

He had gotten the unicorn horn form Bob and thought nothing of it. He'd let his snake basically have free reign of the castle and the ground surrounding it as Bob had grown bored of attending Corvus' classes. His exploration was usually accompanied by Dave who knew the tunnels like no other. He did remember letting them go out onto the grounds of Hogwarts under the condition that they didn't kill anyone.

It might have been prudent of him if he had extended that list to those within the Forbidden Forest.

"Professor Quirrell has unfortunately disappeared. So! For the remaining school year, myself and Professor Snape shall be teaching the Defense Against The Dark Arts classes."

Corvus fiddled with his unicorn horn as he sat in the Great Hall with everyone else during breakfast and listened to the Headmaster's words. His eyes slowly went to the horn in his hand as mention of Quirrell's disappearance came to light and wondered just what his pet snake and his new friend had been up to recently. Though, he might already know the answer to that, and he glanced towards the Gryffindor table to where Potter was.

The kid had just gotten out of the Hospital Wing. Why Harry Potter was in there in the first place was unknown, though there were plenty of rumors.

"I wonder where he went." Justin mused as they all dug into breakfast.

"Yeah." Corvus said as he put his unicorn horn away and reminded himself to into it at the bottom of his trunk after breakfast. "I wonder where he went."

LINERBEAKASDF

"You sssaid anything in the foressst was fair game."

"I didn't think you'd actually kill sssomeone."

"Well, that'sss your fault."

"Were you alwaysss like thisss?"

"Young Ssspeaker isss jussst changing the topic to hide that he didn't think all the way through."

"Oh, now you're getting sssassssssy on me?"

"…"

"I can ssstill sssee you! That rock isssn't hiding anything!"

"I don't see what the problem is."

Corvus let his face fall into his hands as he sighed. Going to Daphne was supposed to be the easy thing that helped him through this. She was basically a vault where information could be stored, and no one would get in. That meant that he could confess that he might be responsible for killing Quirinus Quirrell in some fundamental way. What he didn't expect was for Daphne to be completely fine with his confession.

"Why not? I just admitted that I might have been partly responsible for the death of a professor."

"You did not kill him, however. There was also no body recovered."

"That's it?"

"Do you require further reasoning as to your innocence?"

"This isn't really helping."

"There's nothing to help Corvus." Daphne said and patted him on the arm once. "Dave's decision to kill and eat the professor is not on you."

"Yeah, you're probably ri- wait a minute. How do you know about Dave?"

Daphne looked at him with that ever-blank expression and Corvus narrowed his eyes at her. She didn't so much as squirm and soon enough staring at her got boring. How did she know about Dave the Blind Basilisk? He was pretty sure he hadn't told her about him yet and there wasn't anyone else who knew about him.

"Are you a parselmouth Daphne?"

"No."

"Then how did you learn about Dave?"

"…"

"Don't think that not talking will get you out of this."

"…"

"…"

"…"

"Dammit." Corvus sighed as he frowned at Daphne. She wasn't breaking.

"…"

"Did you talk to Daphne?"

"Who? Another ssspeaker?"

"No, ssshe'sss jussst a human. Did you let her sssee you?"

"I'm blind. I can't sssee anything."

"Point. Bob, did you ssshow Daphne where Dave isss?"

"Daphne?"

"Yesss Daphne."

"Who'sss that?"

"Merlin help me."

"You wanted to see me Headmaster?"

Dumbledore nodded and motioned for Mr. Gaunt to take a seat. The boy did so and refused the offered lemon drop, stating that he didn't like them. Dumbledore merely shrugged and ate one for himself. Corvus Gaunt was a bright young fellow who showed remarkable talent and seemed to embody the Hufflepuff ideals.

"I hear you've started a little club."

"Oh! Yeah, The Benign Disparagers, we mostly just hang around and talk."

"And you've managed to get all of Hufflepuff to sign up as well."

"I don't really know how that happened." Mr. Gaunt rubbed the back of his neck at that.

"I also heard something about dark lords?"

"Heh, yeah that was just a joke, nothing serious about it."

"Well, if you say so."

"Professor Sprout can vouch for me. She's a member as well."

"I know, I just wanted to make sure is all."

"Alright."

"Now, I've also heard tell of a Chair-Broom Mark II?"

"Honestly Corvus you need to focus more on our classes instead of the broom experiment."

Corvus Gaunt looked up at Hermione as he fiddled with the Chair-Broom Mark III. The couch had been a good idea but now he had the suggestion of a long table, and that was just too funny of an image to not attempt, so here he was. Thankfully the Room of Requirement provided all they needed and now Corvus along with most of the Hufflepuff Quidditch Team were strapping brooms to said long table.

There were a lot of sticking charms being thrown around.

"This is important though." Corvus pointed out. "How do you think this is all working together, not magic."

"Did you just say-"

"What he meant was there's a lot of rune work and arithmancy to also take into account." Cedric explained as Hermione sputtered. The third year wiped his brow as he finished applying sticking charms to his section of the long table.

"Exactly what Cedric said." Corvus said. "I've recruited some of the older Ravenclaw students to help out with the more complex matrices."

"Still." Hermione said and had her hands on her hips. "As much as this is interesting its not on our final exams."

"Hermione!" Corvus whined. "Its not even Christmas yet!"

"Its never too early to prepare."

"She's got a point Corvus." Cedric said.

"Oh! Traitor!"

"Stop whining Corvus." Lucy Evenstar said as she walked by and whacked him on the back of the head with a broom. "Its not like you're going to fail any of the tests anyway."

"Hey! I'll take you on another ride on the Chair-Broom Mark II again for that!" Corvus said back and watched as Lucy paled at that and hastily ran away.

"Anyway." Hermione said after Lucy was gone and Cedric took over from Corvus in attaching the sticking charms to the broom and the long table. "We need to study. Set up schedules for all the club members so that no one falls behind and does something like… fail a test."

Corvus watched as Hermione shuddered at that like it was the worst thing possible in the world. A part of him wondered how she'd reaction if he told her that he helped kill Professor Quirrell. Would she react as badly? Maybe not, seeing as Hermione was obsessed with grades and nothing else.

"Right, that sounds like a great idea Hermione." Corvus said. "Why don't you-"

Cedric slapped a hand over his mouth before he could delegate the work of making study schedules to Hermione.

"We'll bring it up at the next meeting Hermione." Cedric said and Hermione seemed to accept that. After she was gone Cedric turned to him. "Are you trying to get us all killed?"

"What?" Corvus asked only after he removed Cedric's hand from his mouth.

"You know how Hermione is." Cedric continued. "If she got a hold of making study schedules then we'd be doing nothing else until finals come around."

Corvus' eyes widened as he realized just what he had narrowly missed. Cedric shared the same look with him and both of them silently returned to their work. The Chair-Broom Mark III distracting them from the possibilities of what Hermione Granger would do if she had unlimited power.

It was a scary thought.