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Vince’s Ambition
by Lucinda
Vince Crabbe was not one of his year’s top students. It would be closer to say that he was one of the year’s worst students when it came to his class work. He figured that he’d get a handful of passing OWL’s, maybe a passing NEWT or two, and go to take up life as one of the not terribly wealthy purebloods of England. He’d follow Uncle Julius in raising magical plants and some smaller magical creatures for the potions trade, eventually find a witch wife, and have a family. He was doing fairly well in Herbology and Creatures, so there should no reason to suspect that he couldn’t follow that path.
Except that this summer, the Dark Lord had come back. He didn’t know how it worked, figuring that it was some sort of very powerful, likely very dark. Probably something too complicated for the likes of him to understand.
Da kept saying that this was something big, and acting like this was a good thing. That soon, the bad blood would be taken out, leaving only the good, only the pure. Then he’d grin about it like when Ma made blackberry mead. After that, he’d question Vince about his family tree, asking who his ancestors were and who he was related to. It wasn’t that hard to remember, and a lot of the same families kept coming back in again and again. All the questions did make him worry – were those meetings making his Da forget things now?
Vince had seen his Da hobbling about, shaking and hoarse after his meetings. Seen him limping in, with big bruises and bloodshot eyes. He’d seen the skin over Da’s knuckles split from casting too many spells. Vince wasn’t good with books, but he could piece together thing that he saw or touched. The things that he was seeing didn’t look like having the Dark Lord back was a good thing.
Vince had done a lot of thinking over the summer, and had decided something. He didn’t want to follow the Dark Lord. Didn’t want to take a Mark that reminded him too much of the way his neighbors the MacDougals branded their cattle. Didn’t want to come back from meetings shaking and hoarse from screaming, his eyes gone red from the blood bursting out of the little vessels. Didn’t want to spend his nights chasing impure blood to make them go away.
He wanted to apprentice with his uncle, and learn to grow plants and tend animals. He wanted to find a nice witch who didn’t expect things he couldn’t do, and have a family. A big family, with a lot more children than his parents. Nothing wrong with having daughters to marry to other families, but after two girls, when his parents had him, they’d stopped trying for children. Vince wasn’t taking Arithmancy, but he could figure out that there were fewer purebloods now than a century ago. And he could figure out that unless pureblood couples had more children than one, maybe two if the first was a daughter, there would be a lot less purebloods in another hundred years. For your children to be purebloods, Papa and Mamma both had to be purebloods themselves, and that meant purebloods having daughters as well as sons.
Vince also knew that when he was a bit younger, Grand-Da had said that night was the only time for decent men to go to their wives, and that a decent woman would only receive her husband at night, with the lights down low. That if a dutiful husband did that every so often, he’d have a child eventually. Now, if the only decent time for a husband to visit his wife to try to get a baby was at night, then running around at night in dark robes trying to get rid of the impure blood meant you weren’t at home with your wife. How were decent folks supposed to get children if they were never together? His Grand-Da was actually rather forward thinking for the circles that his Da ran with, worried more about proper behavior and domestic skills than family and bloodlines, though he’d found good pureblood spouses for both his children.
Of course, it didn’t look like he’d be able to find his nice girl and raise a family if his Da and Da’s Dark Lord had their way. They’d have him branded and out chasing people at night instead of working to learn a trade or working on a family. If he wanted his dreams to come true instead of his nightmares, the Dark Lord had to go.
Damn if he knew how to make that happen.
But while Vince wasn’t the smartest young wizard, he did know that there was nothing wrong with having someone else do things that they were better suited for. Nothing wrong with having someone good with animals deal with the Hippogriffs while someone good with Runes and Arithmancy set the spells on your house to keep it safe and expand a couple rooms. Nothing wrong with letting the wife or girlfriend pick the new clothing, especially when his concerns stopped at ‘does it fit’ and ‘is it clean’. So it would be best to find someone else to make the Dark Lord go away, and then he could just... maybe give them a discount on potions ingredients for the rest of their life or something. Name a child after them, once he had a wife and they’d started a family.
Which raised the question of who would be good at getting rid of the Dark Lord?
Grand-Da talked to aurors when people were casting hexes on the chickens, since Grand-Da’s eyes were too bad to take care of it himself. But the aurors hadn’t been able to stop the Dark Lord last time. St. Mungo’s and Mediwitches were great for when you’d taken a bad potion, or splinched yourself, or your older sister had hexed you with seeping purple boils, but they didn’t fix Dark Wizards, just the injuries that those wizards left on people that didn’t die. The Wizengamot were a bunch of rich, stuffy people more worried about keeping in power than actually going out to fix things. The Ministry was the same, only they made regulations and departments to tell you what you couldn’t do anymore. Dumbledore hadn’t stopped anything since Grindlewald, and he’d probably just say some baffling things that sounded like he’d take care of it, offer a lemon sherbert, and do nothing. Those lemon sherberts were all stuck together and going gummy anyhow. And everyone knew that Snape’d been Marked, was a Death Eater the first time around, so having him fix this was right out. Fix a bad potion, or a Griff causing trouble, sure. But not this.
It wasn’t until Malfoy towed him and Greg along with him so that he’d have the balls to taunt Potter on the train again that his question was answered. Potter had stopped the Dark Lord before. Yeah, he hadn’t managed to get him gone forever, but he’d only been a year old at the time. Surely he could do a better job now that he had a wand and could cast spells and such. Potter had been the one that said he’d come back – and he WAS back. Potter had made the whole Heir of Slytherin and people getting petrified thing stop – and while Malfoy had said it was all about blood and being Pure, Vince didn’t think he was quite up to what the Great Slytherin would have wanted in his House. Maybe not in the whole school. Potter didn’t just talk about things getting fixed, he did stuff to make it happen.
That just left him trying to figure out how to ask Potter to make the Dark Lord go away again, and how to keep Potter from hexing him long enough to ask. Potter wasn’t one of his friends. His friends were his first cousins Greg and Millie; little Cassie Bigby in Hufflepuff the year behind him, and maybe Luna. Luna was a bit odd, talking about animals that he’d never heard of, but most of what he knew about were domestic animals, or the big scary ones from Hagrid’s class. Luna never laughed at him for talking funny, or for not being very smart. He just wasn’t sure if they were close enough to count as friends… but he was pretty sure they weren’t enemies.
After several days of wracking his brain about how to ask Potter without getting hexed, Vince had an idea. He’d ask Luna for advice. She was smart, all the people in Ravenclaw were, at least with books. Worst come to it, he’d take Luna with him and let her ask Potter about some weird animal while he slipped away. Potter wouldn’t hex Luna for asking about her strange things, but he might hex Vince for being too close. Potter wasn’t mean like some of the Slytherin upperclassmen, who’d hex him for breathing near them.
Luna was easy enough to find. Since it was still nice weather, he went to the lake after dinner. As he’d expected, Luna was there, tossing breadcrumbs to the plimpies, up to her knees in the water.
“Hi, Luna. Did you have a good summer?” he waved a little, making certain that he was making enough noise and moving slowly enough that he couldn’t be accused of sneaking up or startling her.
“Daddy and I went looking for crumple-horned snorkacks in Sweden. The countryside was lovely, the food was different, and Daddy almost got eaten by a dragon,” Luna giggled.
“How’d he do that?” Vince asked. He was almost afraid of what the answer might be. Luna was an odd girl, but it seemed like she got it all right natural from her Da.
“The dragon was asleep, and he had to tickle it,” she sighed, crumbling half a dinner roll over the water.
Vince blinked. He hadn’t expected that Luna’s Da would try something like that. It was the Hogwarts motto, and even he wasn’t slow enough to try it. Then again, his Da had once said that some people were so smart that they were dumb… “You said almost, which means he wasn’t. That’s good, right?”
“Right. He’ll know better than to try that again,” Luna nodded, her hair bobbing along, the wand behind her ear moving but not quite falling into the lake. “What did you need help with today?”
“I need to talk to Harry Potter. But…” Vince paused, trying to figure out if there was a better way to say ‘I don’t want him to hex me, can you help?’ than putting it that bluntly.
“But you’re a Slytherin and everyone associates you with Malfoy, who is an odious little ferret? Most people would like to hex Malfoy for existing, and you might be considered as one of his accessories… I think he might look good in a pale blue, maybe the color of the Beauxbaton robes. What makes you think I can help?” Luna turned around to face him, her eyes wide and pale and looking just a little shimmery.
Not for the first time, Vince found himself wondering if Luna was all human. It might explain her eyes. “He’d call the blue too girly. You’re smart, and what I need to talk to him about… it’s important. To me. And I don’t want hexed before I can say it.”
“That would make it more difficult to have a conversation,” Luna admitted. “I’ll try to talk to him, to set up a meeting. After I talk to him, then I’ll tell you how it goes, and maybe you can have your conversation without hexes.”
“Sounds good,” Vince gave Luna a smile. “Will you be able to help me with Charms again this year?”
“Of course! Let me know which ones are giving you trouble, and I’ll tell you all about my divination assignment, and the troubles that will soon befall my poor cousin Amidalla…”
Vince frowned, trying to sort out what was wrong with that statement. After a few moments, it came to him. “Luna, you don’t have a cousin Amidalla.”
Giggling, she nodded, “I know that, you know that, Professor Trelawney doesn’t. If her Sight was half as clear as she claims, then she would know that. She would also know how silly it is that I’m claiming Amidalla will fall in love with a wizard burdened by a Destiny, under the mentorship of Disguised Evil, and that Amidalla is destined to Die Tragically bearing twins. I’ve taken notes on what the older years say Trelawney really likes, and I’m feeding her silly stories that fit. It helps keep her out of the way for my Divination studies.”
Vince just grinned at Luna. He’d heard some of the Slytherins talking about Trelawney and her gloomy predictions, so he figured that Luna was probably right. He’d let her worry about her Divination studies.
It only took a few days before Luna brought up the matter of his meeting with Potter. He was practicing the wand movements for a charm to freshen spoiled food, under Luna’s wide gaze.
“Vince? I talked to him, and he wanted to know how he could be certain that you wouldn’t hex him, or have someone else waiting to hex him for you,” She paused, tapping her lip with one finger. “You aren’t planning on that, are you? I know that some people think a light hexing will make someone pay attention.”
“If things got the way I want, nobody will be hexed,” Vince promised.
“Lovely. If you’re willing to make a Promise about that, he said he’d be willing to meet and hear what you have to say,” Luna grinned, and then paused, “I didn’t actually tell him who wanted to talk to him, just that it was one of my friends. I think we’re friends, aren’t we?”
Luna looked so nervous and hopeful that it made Vince feel funny inside. Like looking at a lost kitten that had been caught in the rain. “Yeah, we’re friends.”
“I’ll talk to him again for you,” Luna was bouncing on her toes, her smile bright enough to rival a lumos.
Two days later, as he was making his way out of Herbology, Luna appeared beside him. It was almost as if she’d apparated, except that you couldn’t do that in Hogwarts. He yelped a little before mumbling, “you startled me, Luna.”
“Can you meet with him Friday? During your free period after History of Magic,” she spoke in quick, low words, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear her.
“Where?” She hadn’t mentioned a location, and even with magic, it helped to know where someone would be to talk to them.
“Oh, I’ll take you there. I already told Professor Trelawney that I’d miss class due to an unexpected fall and twisting my ankle. She believed me, since it was a story about misery and suffering,” Luna explained.
Vince was amazed, and hoped that Luna never decided that she wanted to manipulate him. Cunning like that… he figured the only reason she must be in Ravenclaw would be if she was smarter than she was cunning. That was a scary thought. Then again, if Luna decided to manipulate him, he’d probably never know. “Okay.”
Friday rolled around, and Vince managed to stay awake during History of Magic. He did this by ignoring Binns and trying to find the right words for his talk with Potter. This was more important. If Potter couldn’t stop the Dark Lord, nobody’d ever care if he passed History of Magic. After class, he waited until everyone was out, and then followed Luna.
She led him to one of the empty classrooms, and paused by the door. “When you step inside, hold your wand up and make your promise. Promise that you only want to talk, and aren’t planning on hexing anyone in the room. Do that the very first thing.”
Vince nodded, and moved to the doorway. The room was dark, so he couldn’t see what or who was inside. Lifting his wand, he spoke carefully, wanting to make sure that the words were understood and nobody thought he was trying to hex Potter. “I, Vince Crabbe, do solemnly swear that I am here to talk to Harry Potter. I do not intend to try to cast any hostile spells at him, or to otherwise cause him harm on this day.”
“This is a surprise. Now I know why Luna didn’t tell me who wanted to talk. You might as well come into the room,” Potter’s voice was slightly puzzled.
The door closed behind him, and a scattering of candles lit the room, flaring into light as the door closed. Potter was perched on a desk, and there was a Kobold perched on the desk next to him. Malfoy would have insisted it was a House-Elf, but Vince wasn’t fooled. No House-Elf would have such a fierce light in his eyes, like Hagrid’s beasts, or such a wide grin. This was an unbound Kobold… and it seemed to like Potter. He decided that he was very glad that he’d made the promise.
“We both know that the Dark Lord came back,” Vince began, deciding that he was rubbish at the polite social chatter, so he’d just skip it.
Potter rubbed at his arm, his expression tightening, “Yeah. Too bad more people didn’t believe me.”
“My Da’s one of his people. I’ve seen what that does to him,” Vince paused, trying to find the right words. “I don’t want that to be me in a couple years. That isn’t the future I want.”
“What do you want for your future then? If not Voldemort and his Mark,” Potter asked.
Vince shivered as Potter said the name of the Dark Lord. “I want to grow potions ingredients. I want a nice wife, and I want to spend my nights with my wife, trying to have a big family instead of out hexing people in the dark. I want to be a very old man before my hands shake all the time, and I want it to be from being old, not from having been cursed too many times. And I don’t want to be branded like one of the MacDougal’s cattle.”
“Huh. That sounds pretty reasonable to me,” Potter paused, and tilted his head before asking, “So why talk to me?”
“I want you to stop him. Aurors couldn’t or wouldn’t before, no reason to think they’ll do more this time. Mediwitches can fix the hexes, if you live, but they don’t get rid of dark wizards. The Ministry’s useless, and so’s the Wizengamot. Dumbledore’d just offer me a lemon sherbert, talk me into confusion, and do nothing. He hasn’t done much of anything since he offed Grindlewald, and I don’t think he’s got it in him anymore. That leaves you. You stopped him for a while before, when you were just a little kid wobbling around. I think you could do a better job now, make him gone for good. And you don’t just say something’s wrong, you do something about it. Like you did the whole Heir of Slytherin thing, and the Dementors.”
Potter’s jaw dropped, and for a few moments, he just stood there, trying to find the words.
Vince had to admit that the expression did look funny when it wasn’t him.
“You see! Even big boy who follows bad little Malfoy around knows that Harry Potter Sir is a great wizard!” the Kobold danced around, rubbing his long fingers together. “Many people is not wanting the bad times from under the Evil Wizard to come back.”
“But I’m not sure how to get rid of him for good! He knows a lot more than me, and he’s got all those followers…” Potter shook his head. “This shouldn’t be the responsibility of a kid. It should be the aurors and the Ministry and the Wizengamot.”
“Bu they won’t,” Vince offered.
“No, they won’t. I’ll do what I can to get rid of him for good. He killed my parents, he keeps trying to kill me… I’m just not sure how to get rid of him. And this year’s Defense teacher’s worse than useless,” Potter grumbled.
“I’ll do what I can, but that’s probably just get you potions ingredients or maybe hold someone down for you. I’m not smart, I’m not good at solving problems,” Vince admitted. Potter’s words about Umbridge were so obvious that he didn’t think he needed to say anything.
“That and let me know if you hear about any plots to kill me this year?” Potter countered.
Vince nodded, accepting the bargain. “Deal.”
Vince figured that things were looking up. Potter could get rid of the Dark Lord. His Kobold wouldn’t let anyone get away with too much here at school. And maybe he could give Potter advance warning of things before they got too nasty this year. If he saw it coming.
Potter would take care of the Dark Lord, the aurors could get the Death Eaters, and he could have his dreams. Not all dreams were big. He’d leave the big dreams to those equipped to achieve them. Just leave him to a potions farm, with a nice witch for a wife and he could start on a big brood of children. Maybe as many as the Weasley’s had. It was a good dream for him.
Now all he had to do was write a letter to uncle Julius asking about that apprenticeship.
End Vince’s Ambition.