The Intense Crabbe Scene We Never Got To See In Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows
In the Harry Potter book series and its film adaptations, Harry's nemesis Draco Malfoy has two big, dumb cronies who do his bidding: Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. For most of the series, the book versions of Crabbe and Goyle and their screen counterparts closely align in their storylines. They pop up throughout the series to laugh at Malfoy's mean comments and look intimidating. When Voldemort returns, they join Malfoy in becoming Death Eaters, like their own fathers before them. In the two Deathly Hallows films, however, there's a big divergence in the character of Crabbe, for reasons that had to do with the actor who played him. As a result, fans never got to see Crabbe's biggest moment in the books play out on-screen.
In the novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Crabbe plays his role as Malfoy's loyal henchman until the fight in the Room of Requirement during the Battle of Hogwarts, when he defies Malfoy for the first time, a decision with fatal consequences. Malfoy's orders were to bring Harry to Voldemort alive, but Crabbe shot to kill during the fight, because he no longer felt beholden to the weakened Malfoy family and had become a murderous dark wizard in his own right. Crabbe then conjured a cursed inferno called Fiendfyre, which he couldn't control. Everyone managed to escape the spreading blaze in the Room of Requirement except Crabbe, who perished. He also inadvertently destroyed Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, so he even made a bungle of his own death.
In the second Deathly Hallows film, the events described above happen in a similar way, except it wasn't Vincent Crabbe who got killed by his own Fiendfyre, it was Gregory Goyle. And the reason why is pretty sad.
Crabbe got cut from Deathly Hallows
Vincent Crabbe wasn't in the final two Harry Potter films due to legal problems with the actor who played him, Jamie Waylett. Waylett got in some trouble between production on the sixth film in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and the seventh, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part I, and, as a result, was not invited back to close out the series.
In April 2009, a few months before the release of Half-Blood Prince but after it had been filmed, Waylett, who was 19 at the time, was driving a car that was pulled over by police, according to the Telegraph. In the car, officers found eight bags of cannabis. Afterward, police raided Waylett's family's home and found ten mature cannabis plants that he had grown. He pleaded guilty and did community service. But the damage to his reputation in the family-friendly Harry Potter franchise was done, and Waylett did not return for the final two films. Crabbe was replaced as Malfoy's lackey by another Slytherin student named Blaise Zabini, played by Louis Cordice.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of Waylett's legal issues. In 2012, he was sentenced to three years in prison for participating in the 2011 London riots and "handling stolen goods" by swigging from a looted bottle of champagne another rioter gave him, according to BBC News.
Since then, the former actor has kept a low profile, and there's not much information online about his current life. But he appeared at a couple of Harry Potter fan conventions last year alongside Goyle portrayer Josh Herdman, according to Herdman's Twitter, so he's at least marginally back in the Wizarding World fold. Waylett also got married in Scotland, and Herdman attended his wedding.
As for what happened to Crabbe in the movies, no explanation was given.