Unconsidered
Disclaimer: Vincent Crabbe and co. do not belong to me.
AN: This is just a simple vignette about Vincent Crabbe. Hope you enjoy!
***
They think I'm slow.
They think I'm a thug.
They think I'm a Death Eater.
They don't think of me at all.
I'm no one to them. They all just see me as part of the Slytherin flunkies that crowd around Malfoy. They just bunch me together with Goyle, and we are a single entity to all of them. Crabbe and Goyle. Them. Malfoy's cronies. I am just a face that goes to one of those names. I doubt many even bother to learn which of us is Crabbe and which is Goyle.
They don't see me at all.
None of them know me as Vincent, of Vinnie, or Vince, or anything. I am Crabbe. Nothing more, not much less. They don't know that my favorite color is not Slytherin green, as is generally considered the favorite color of everyone in the House. My favorite color is maroon, actually.
When I was a little boy, I had a nanny that came to watch over me. My nanny also watched over a family of half-blood. One day, she brought me a bright yellow box. In it was all sorts of sticks of color that she told me were crayons. She showed me how to work the crayons, and I was enthralled. Just swiping them against the paper created color!
I could even make the colors lighter and darker, according to how hard I pressed down with them. There were lots of colors, red and blue and green and purple and yellow and black and white, but my absolute favorite one was the one with the label reading 'maroon.'
The maroon crayon looked only a little darker in shade than the red one, but when I pressed the tip to paper it made a world of difference. The red was a light and watery color, bright enough, but not very appealing to the eyes. The maroon, on the other hand, created this rich dark color without even having to press very hard, and when I did bear down on the crayon it made this deep, smooth color that the plain red didn't even compare to. They might have looked similar on the outside, but the huge differences was immediately noticeable after utilizing.
Goyle isn't the brightest crayon in the box, some might say. I think he's the red crayon, personally. What you see is what you get. The brightness of the crayon is readily apparent from its exterior, just as Goyle's intellectual abilities are on par with his brutish appearance. I know I am being more than a little hypocritical by judging someone by their appearance, but truly, from many years of companionship, I am positive that's about all there is to dear Goyle. We may look similar, but we are vastly different, as no one seems to notice.
That's what gets to me the most, really. That no one bothers to try to differentiate between the two of us. We are not identical, after all. I'm taller than Goyle, and we have different hair and everything. I do think he got the better end of the deal when it comes to haircuts, though.
I hate my hair.
Of all the things I have to complain about when it comes to my appearance, hair should probably not be my biggest peeve. After all, hair can be changed. Hair can be lost. Looking like a gorilla is more difficult to change. A pair of scissors could theoretically go far to mend this as well, but I'm pretty sure that it would be much more painful than getting a haircut.
It's all my mother's fault, really. She never was really terrific with the finer motor skills, and it was beyond her to cut anything in a straight line. So, when she would give me haircuts as a child, she would need a guide to keep it all straight. So she always pulled out a pudding bowl, plopped it on my head, and began to snip away.
She decided that she liked the result, and my hair has remained the same ever since. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have bristly hair like Goyle's, or slicked back hair like Malfoy's, but then I realize that I would look strange with someone else's haircut. I do always do my best to keep my hair neat and tidy, though. Harry Potter might have a lot of things going for him, but I, Vincent Crabbe, have much better hair. Though he's about the only one I beat, except maybe the Weasleys, but they have their own classification when it comes to hair.
I just wish that people would notice that about me, too. Even being the thug with better hair that Harry Potter would be better than 'Crabbe and Goyle.' It's not like everyone else is seen alone all the time, either. You don't hear 'Pansy and Millicent' being grouped together constantly, or 'Susan and Hannah' or even 'Harry, Ron, and Hermione.' No. Everyone else is considered their own person except for me and Goyle.
There are so many things that caused all this, too, so it isn't just like I could say, "If I were more independent," or "If my father wasn't a Death Eater," or even "If I had been a Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff..."
This is my fate. I am condemned to a fate of looming behind rich brats and grunting agreement and sniggering stupidly and rubbing my knuckles together in a menacing way. Never mind that I would much rather become something more. What if I wanted to be a shoe salesman? What if I wanted to make snow globes? What if I don't want to be a Death Eater and be killed in some big showdown and only be mourned by my mother, with my supposed friends giving only a passing thought to the entire matter of my demise?
I just don't want to be a cookie cutter thug anymore. I never did.
But there's really nothing I can do to change. At least, while I'm still at Hogwarts. Everyone already has me classified in their minds, and I can't change that. I will never be Vincent or Vince or Vinnie to any of those people. None of them will ever care enough about me.
All I can do is continue like I have been, and do my best with my studies. I actually enjoy History of Magic, you know. Goblins are very interesting creatures. Of course, no one else shares my enthusiasm, so I don't show it. But history is my favorite subject, with Herbology being my second favorite. Maybe, one day, when I've escaped the mold that I'm expected to follow, I can do something with my life involving these.
My father is a Death Eater. My father is a big, dumb thug who doesn't care that he's just another big dumb thug. I may look like him, but I want to be anything but a big dumb thug. I don't want to follow You-Know-Who. I don't want to be one of You-Know-Who's disposable minions. That's all I really exist for, after all. My life had been planned somewhat haphazardly from my birth. My father thinks that the 'Dark Lord,' as he's so fond of calling the snake faced coward, speaks the gospel with every breath. Nothing will ever convince the man that You-Know-Who is anything less than a god.
He tried his best to mold me into a miniature version of himself, but it didn't work. Sure, I don't have any big problem with calling people a 'Mudblood' or anything like that, but I don't think that You-Know-Who is someone to be revered either. His whole, 'you will die when I say you must die," attitude just isn't something I really want to follow.
My father has been bothering me about becoming a Death Eater lately, though. He doesn't even realize that it's suicide. There might be a possibility of survival if he was intelligent or an integral part of the Death Eater hierarchy, but thugs are disposable.
If I were to follow the life he's planned for me, I would do nothing but kill and be killed. If I were Goyle, this wouldn't bother me. But I'm not! I just want to get away from all this. I don't want my mother to have to act proud that her only son was killed in an insignificant battle that would have absolutely no impact on anything. I don't want my mother to hide her tears about my wasted life. I want my mother to be able to truly say that I died valiantly, or courageously, or preferably not at all.
I'll just bide my time, though. I know You-Know-Who doesn't take Hogwarts students as Death Eaters. Too conspicuous even for the man that decided to brand his followers on a rather commonly seen extremity.
I'll leave here, go someplace else as soon as I finish school.
I'll be known there as Vincent, or Vince, or Vinnie. No one will call me "Crabbe and Goyle," or even just Crabbe. I will be a person, not a big lump of flesh standing behind Malfoy. I will be known, even if only to one person, as somebody.
I want to be thought of as somebody.
I don't want to be a Death Eater.
I don't want to be just a thug.
And I'm not slow.
***
Thanks for reading!