Second year found Crabbe looking through the Great Hall for Goyle, finding him curled up in a corner. Crabbe had just finished secretly correcting Malfoy's holiday homework, adding the appropriate arrogant flourishes, and was looking for a good time. He found Goyle bending all the silverware into square knots, and realized that this good time was not to be had.
"All right, Greggers?"
"I got a letter from my mamma," Goyle replied.
Oh, great, Crabbe thought, sitting beside him. "What did she say this time?"
"Mamma is getting a divorce, and she called dadda mean names and said that wizards can't give good head. What's that mean?"
"I think it means she's a lesbian," Crabbe replied, taking the spoons away from Goyle and mending them with a Reparo!
"But she's not in plays," Goyle replied.
Crabbe dismissed this, and tried to pull Goyle away from table. He may as well have been tugging on the arm of a marble statue. "I'm sure your parents love you very much, now let's go get something to eat."
Goyle pouted.
Crabbe threw his hands up. "Greggers, it's Christmas! Santa is coming."
"All the other Slytherins said Santa is a Muggle."
"Of course he's not a Muggle! How else does he get to every child's house on Christmas night? Santa isn't a Muggle, don't worry."
"Drives a sled. Doesn't use Floo-powder."
Crabbe was momentarily stunned by this sensible thought coming from Goyle.
"Well ... well ... well, it's because Santa isn't a human at all. He's a house-elf who serves all of humanity. And a very good one at that, who never has to iron his fingers."
Goyle's eyes went wide. "A house-elf?"
"Right, a right jolly old elf. And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself."
"You saw Santa?"
"Yes, I ... er ... I saw him in the hallway, delivering presents. And I asked him, and he said there was an extra-sad boy around who he was delivering presents to, to cheer him up. And guess who that sad boy is?"
"Uh ... Harry Potter?"
"... no. It's you!"
A light leapt into Goyle's eyes. "Santa brought me food!"
"Er, what?"
"I saw cakes in the hallway! Santa brought me cakes!"
"What are you–"
"Come on!" Goyle cried, pulling Crabbe along–and though Crabbe was still rather taller than Goyle, he found that he could no more stop Greggers than Voldemort would admit defeat to Dumbledore at a polite public debate moderated by impartial judges.
Goyle hauled Crabbe down the labyrinthine corridors of Hogwarts, stopping in front of a couple of cakes lying abandoned on the floor.
"See! Santa left them for me, because I'm so sad my mamma is sucking pussy."
"Er–Greg, you shouldn't eat food just lying around. It's probably not safe," Crabbe said. And did he just hear a giggle?
Goyle's face fell. "Santa's trying to kill me?"
"No–"
"Smash Santa," Goyle hissed, cracking his knuckles. He seemed to increase in girth, if that were possible.
"No! I was just–teasing! This food is very good!" So say, he took up a cake and began to eat it. "Mmm! Good!"
Well, as soon as he bit into it, he tasted the sleeping potion, because, let's face it, the Robitussin taste is not easily disguised, not even by a few layers of flower, sugar, and chocolate icing. It was so obvious, in fact, one would have to be extremely dense not to realize that it was laced with it after the first bite–exactly as dense as Goyle happened to be. Unwilling to drop the ruse, Crabbe smiled and continued chewing, and Goyle greedily tore into his own cake, simple delight on his face.
Then the floor rapidly rose to smash into their faces.
Crabbe awoke in the cold, in the dark, to the sound of Goyle's sobs, and to a throbbing headache.
"Crabbe?" Goyle was sobbing. "Crabbe? Crabbe? Crabbe?"
"What?" Crabbe snapped.
"Santa hates me."
"Santa doesn't hate you," Crabbe muttered, pulling himself up.
"I ate the cake and I fell down!" Goyle wailed. Suddenly, his sobs halted. "Crabbe," he whispered. "Are we in hell?"
"We're in a broom closet, Greggers."
"How do you know?"
"It's dark and I'm sitting on a broom."
"Why did Santa put me in a broom closet?"
"It's Santa Claus, Goyle, Santa Claus! For Merlin's sake, you sound so babyish when you leave off his last name!"
Goyle's silence spoke volumes. If the volumes were filled with angry diatribes about the fickle nature of friendship and illustrated with helpful pictures of Crabbe having just been relieved of several of his limbs.
"No, no, see, it was ... a dream potion. Yeah. It gives you the most awesome dream of your deepest desire, and it's amazing! But when you wake up you can't remember it. Trust me, it's worth it."
"I don't remember dreaming about custard."
"That's right, you forget it. Trust me, it was fantastic."
"Was I licking it off toes?"
"I ... I ... yes?"
"Was it your toes?"
"Perhaps?"
"Oh." Goyle sounded far more cheerful. "Can we go now? I have to piss."
"Er, yes, let's."
They stumbled out of the closet, and down the hallway - the potion was still affecting their balance. They had not tripped on too many staircases before they heard Malfoy's voice compelling them.
"Crabbe! Goyle! On every twelfth follicle of Merlin's beard, what. Are. You. Doing?"
"I–" Crabbe began.
"I thought you were going to the hospital for Goyle's stomachache," Draco said, pointing at Crabbe's midsection.
"It's ... better now," Crabbe said.
"Oh! Well, why are you up here? You're not anywhere near the hospital wing, or the dungeons."
As a matter of fact, Crabbe had no idea where they were going. He had lumbered about with a vague idea of visiting the magic room on the seventh floor, maybe conjuring up some wakefulness potions within it, or, alternately, a comfortable bed. (Pansy had commandeered Goyle's bed for her accessories. Goyle had commandeered Crabbe's. Crabbe slept on the floor.) Goyle had blindly followed him. Crabbe just stared.
Draco took his hint magnificently. "God, if you two were any slower, you'd be going backwards!"
Goyle nodded. Draco said this several times a day, and yet he still hadn't worked out what it meant. He was grateful for the repetition.
"And–while we're on the subject–what's with all the questions about the Chamber and whatnot? I mean, you were practically interrogating me. Me, a Malfoy! God, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were Harry Potter in disguise or something."
"Sorry," Crabbe offered.
"Sorry is right. You're sorry. ... excuses for friends!"
"Good one, Malfoy," said a voice floating up the stairway. It was Blaise. "Though I wouldn't have milked the delivery."
"What milk delivery? The Malfoy Manor has its own cows, you know," Draco said, abandoning his sorry excuses for friends to follow Blaise down the stairs. "Noble and ancient steers and all that." Draco's suggestions to go beat up some Hufflepuff second-years faded from earshot.
Goyle tugged Crabbe's sleeve.
"Crabbe?"
"What, Greggers?"
"Was he talking about the–the chamber?"
"Yeah."
"Should we tell him about that girl writing the messages in blood?"
"No, he doesn't want to hear. Believe me, Greggers, tell him and he will get very angry with you."
Goyle's eyes widened, and he promised not to tell, never to tell. Not about Ginevra Weasley covered in blood, or her strangling chickens, or her walking Inferi-like through the Hogwarts halls, carrying the diary Crabbe recognized from Malfoy's Brand-That-Must-Not-Be-Named Collectibles Museum as being the Dark Lord's own ("A sensational read, though I say it myself–for I have ruled that my opinion is the only one that matters."–He Who Must Not Be Named, the Death Eater Times). As far as Crabbe was concerned, the less Draco knew, the better. Why piss off the Heir of Slytherin?
