A/N: Despite exams (which are over for now), I still managed to write this. Hope you enjoy.

Everything in italics is an extract from Goyle's Journal

"I give up."

I was shocked. Those were three words I had never expected to hear from Vincent Crabbe.
He remained silent for a few moments, took a deep breath, then briefly recounted the events of the night. Though he did not elaborate on his feelings, I could only imagine how anyone would have reacted upon seeing a man's leg viciously ripped open, and then on top of that encountering an 8 foot mountain troll which really should have never been there.

"Goyle... the thing is, remember those cases we solved for fun before Hogwarts? That's the thing - they were just for fun. The worst that happened was a fistfight, but this... this is beyond either of us. No matter how clever I think I may be, I'm no different from anyone else." He sighed, and stared into the fireplace. I pondered on his words for a while, then replied.

"No. You're not the same as anybody else. You may be a student, you may be only eleven, but you are gifted in ways the whole school does not even suspect, in a way that even your family does not suspect. You have a brilliant mind, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to simply act more and more dumb until that becomes who you are? Or are you going to use your talents to make a difference?"

He did not reply. He merely sat gazing at the slowly dying flames. The minutes ticked by, and I could feel a weariness growing within me.
"There's something dangerous afoot," I said quietly. "If you don't want to do something about it, that's your choice. I may not be as brilliant as you are, but I can try. And I will try."

His eyes briefly flicked in my direction as I got up from my armchair, but other than that he made no motion. I went up to the dormitory, leaving him alone with nothing but the glowing pile of ash.

The next morning, I found Crabbe still sitting in the armchair. Whether he had got any sleep during the night I knew not. He noticed me enter the common room, and I sat beside him once more. "Well?" I asked quietly.

His face said more than enough. "I'm sorry old friend."

I left him, and went down to breakfast.

I had arrived earlier than most of the other students, so I took the time to observe Crabbe's prime suspects: Snape and Quirell. The Potions Master was limping heavily as he made his way to the head table. It took a while for the significance of this to sink in: the Cerebrus's wounds could not be healed by magic.
The Defence Professor seemed to have suffered no ill effects from the previous night, but he smirked viciously at Snape's injury. This proved that there were not many pretensions between them, but the question remained as to whether they were enemies or uneasy allies.

Around this point, a crowd of students entered the Hall, among them Potter and Weasley, who once again had tired but triumphant grins. As they sat down at their table, I was surprised to see Granger join them. I tried to remember her status with them at the Feast, but then it occurred to me that I hadn't seen her then. If she hadn't been there, then she wouldn't have heard about the troll... everything clicked into place. Potter and Weasley had warned her about the troll and she was friends with them now.

I did not see Crabbe for most of the day. Sure I was accompanying Malfoy everywhere alongside him, but he did not even once break the 'dumb bodyguard' façade, so neither did I.

Later that night I decided to see if I could discover any evidence from the troll's destruction path, so I Disillusioned myself and crept quietly out of the dormitory. From a hole in a dungeon corridor to a bathroom door on the first floor, I found nothing but what appeared to simply be a path of destruction wreaked by a troll. Whoever had done this had just set the troll on the loose and left it to its own destructive devices.

Then I entered the bathroom, and realised that this was where the troll had put up its final fight. smashed cubicles, porcelain shards and a drenched floor, combined with the pungent smell of troll that was so much stronger here. The remains showed evidence of what was no doubt an epic fight, it had probably taken several of the teacher's combined efforts to take the monster down.

Since I was already out and about, I decided to take a look at the Third Floor corridor, but not venture inside the chamber itself. Shortly after passing by the Library, I noticed an open door leading to a small chamber. Open doors were a rarity after curfew, so I cautiously ventured inside.
Besides the sidelined classroom furniture, a single object stood in the centre of the room. A magnificent gold framed mirror standing on two clawed feet, with an inscription carved into the top:

Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi

I show not your face but your heart's desire.
I looked, and I found the mirror did not lie.

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TwentyRings