Rowena Ravenclaw famously preferred the talented and knowledgeable for her house, and so the powers of her diadem to endow cleverness are better known than those of Hufflepuff's cup. However, such a Crown of Wisdom might be a delusion of sloth as it takes hard work, perseverance and motivation to become smarter. Myriads of students have begged the ghost of Rowena's daughter, the Grey Lady, for the diadem's assistance in making schoolwork easier.35 But Helena Ravenclaw refused to help them. Tom Riddle is the first person she tells how she stole the diadem, saying she stole it because she wanted to be as clever as her mother without making the necessary effort. Told how Helena hid the diadem in a hollow tree when the Bloody Baron vainly summoned her back to her dying mother, that brilliant student, Voldemort,36 makes it his business to seek out the lost diadem to make it his Horcrux of Sloth, once he leaves school.37

But an Albanian peasant is a strange choice as the Diademcrux victim. Why is the killed victim called a peasant, when it is such a feudal term, which suggests ill-educated subservience and is not used in modern times? The term, "peasant' usually indicates a tenant or subsistence farmer whose labour benefits powerful overlords, rich landowners, or foreign conquerors, leaving barely enough for the farm worker to live on. Such peasants have little incentive to better themselves or try harder when they are lucky to be able to read and write their own language, and are rarely allowed to own anything of value by their masters. Perhaps Voldemort, who believes that "there is only power and those too weak to seek it' 38 would regard such people as stupid and lazy.

And why someone from Albania, in particular? The Sorting Hat gives some clues when it associates Ravenclaw with mountains and eagles. Albania is a small, isolated and rather poor country, named for its mountainous terrain, which is heavily forested in places. The people who live there speak a language similar to the one spoken by hardworking Ancient Trojans, and in that language, Albania is called Shqipëria, which translates as the Land of the Eagles.39 Albanian members of the cult of the snake consider it an important household benefactor.40 Could Morfin's nailing a snake to his front door be an Albanian custom? Maybe it is wizarding links as well as isolation, and the chance to do as he likes, which draw Voldemort to Albania time and again when defeated. But when up to 60% of its people still work on farms41 in Albania, which has frequently been kept subservient to foreign regimes in the past thousand years, perhaps any Albanian peasant would suit Voldemort's purpose in making the Diademcrux.

We aren't told which peasant was killed or how easy it was for Voldemort to find the lost diadem. Without information, we can only speculate what might have happened. It is hard to believe that in a thousand years something that looks like a bridal tiara would not have been found and used. In that case, Voldemort merely killed the finder, perhaps while thinking him lazy for not selling the item or becoming more powerful. And if Voldemort found that the diadem really did remain undisturbed and unnoticed in its hollow tree for all those hundreds of years, perhaps Voldemort lazily killed the first farm worker he met, outdoing his victim in sloth.

It isn't even certain whether Voldemort set out on his lost diadem search immediately after leaving school,42 or found the diadem only after fleeing to Albania, having killed Hepzibah Smith for her cup and locket. Ten years afterwards, Voldemort returned to Hogwarts to place the Diademcrux in Hogwarts' trashy Room of Hidden Things under cover of applying for the vacant Defence Against the Dark Arts position, which he jinxed43 when refused as a candidate. The Room of Hidden Things stores lost, forgotten, banned, broken and graffitied things, also suggesting laziness. But was a poor Albanian peasant, who barely makes a livelihood, having no hope of bettering himself and therefore no motivation to try, really any lazier than Voldemort, himself? Despite top grades and many career choices and opportunities open to him,44 Voldemort rejected Slughorn's offer to help him get a position in the Ministry for a short-lived job at Borgin and Burkes. All Voldemort wanted to do was to create Horcruxes, rather than earn his living.

Crabbe is the perfect person to destroy the Diademcrux. Whilst Goyle might have genuinely lacked ability,45 Crabbe lazes his way through his Hogwarts education whilst he subserviently does Draco's bidding. When given a second chance to pass his Defence Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.,46 he spends the year diligently patrolling the corridor outside the Room of Hidden Things, disguised as a little girl47 whilst Draco Malfoy repairs the broken vanishing cabinet. Yet, when violent intimidation is a school subject, he finds the motivation to work so diligently that he actually succeeds in class.48 Unfortunately, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Crabbe learns to start the Fiendfyre, but fails to make the extra effort to learn how to stop it. And so he dies, having no hope of escaping the inferno he started as an easy but terrible way to get rid of Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Thus it is also Crabbe's own lack of information, bad study habits, unproductive effort, lazy choices and lack of perseverance that links the Room of Hidden Things, a hollow tree in Albania, and his brief diligence to a murdered Albanian peasant. Even a little hope and diligence oppose the dead weight of sloth, which drags down a piece of Voldemort's soul to make the Diademcrux. By next dawn, the information that Voldemort, himself, did not know, forgot, or ignored, as he constantly sought easy answers, contributed to his downfall.