The Chronicles of Theon Pastajoy: The Ballad of the Ultimate Cringe

The cold Scottish fog enveloped the high towers of Hogwarts, but even it could not hide the disgrace unfolding right at the castle’s main gates. Theon Pastajoy, officially expelled from the student ranks, had no intention of leaving. Deprived of his wand and the last remnants of his sanity, he had built himself a dwelling right under the school walls. It was not just a shack. It was a monument to human downfall. Theon constructed it from the remains of old brooms, holey robes he fished out of Hagrid’s trash bins, and branches of the Whomping Willow that periodically tried to strangle him. Theon sat in this «palace of sticks and mud,» hugging his knees, and every time the gates opened, he would start to howl. — Forgi-i-ive me! — echoed from the shack. — I won’t turn hedgehogs into Ramsay-rats anymore! I’ll be useful! Let Ser Pastajoy in! — Gryffindor students, passing by, competed in accuracy, tossing «Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans» with the taste of earwax and rotten eggs into the shack. Theon caught them with his mouth, cried, and shouted that they tasted better than anything he had ever been given on the Iron Islands. ROFL! On the seventh day of this howling, the nerves of even the most patient person in the school snapped. But it was not Dumbledore who came out to Theon. Severus Snape descended to the gates. The Potions Professor looked as if he had been forced to listen to Lockhart’s lectures for three hours straight. He stopped in front of the shack, disgustedly lifting the hem of his robes. — Pastajoy — Snape hissed. — Your howling has scared off all the constellations in the vicinity. The centaurs have filed a complaint with the Ministry. Because of you, even my potions are beginning to taste more bitter than usual — Theon poked his head out from under a holey Slytherin robe. His face was covered in a layer of mud, and an owl feather stuck out of his ear. — Professor… — he croaked. — I’ll change… I’ll be good… — Snape went silent. Deep in his coal-black soul, something strange stirred. Perhaps it was pity, or perhaps—simply a desire to end this shame at any cost. Snape also knew what it was like to be an outcast, even if he didn’t run around with a colander on his head. — Listen to me carefully — Snape pulled a small vial of shimmering silvery-green liquid from the folds of his robes. — This is the «Draught of Absolute Oblivion.» One of the most complex potions I have ever brewed. If you drink it, all your memory—all your Greyjoys and Pastajoys, Boltons, centrifuges, and bald hedgehogs—will be erased. You will forget your pain. You will become a blank slate. You can leave this place and start a new life in some remote village, not knowing who you are — Theon stared at the vial. The silvery light of the potion reflected in his mad eyes. He reached out a trembling hand, and Snape placed the vial in it. — Drink — Snape ordered. — And vanish from my life forever — But as soon as Theon touched the cold glass, the PTSD sleeping at the bottom of his consciousness exploded with new force. It seemed to him that the vial was not salvation. It was the «Dreadfort Cocktail,» it was «Ramsay!» It seemed to him that Snape was a disguised Bolton who wanted to force him to drink mercury. — NO! — Theon shrieked, and his «bald hedgehogs» on his forehead flared bright red. — YOU WON’T TRICK ME! YOU WANT TO TAKE MY HEDGEHOGS! IT’S A TRAP! — In a fit of uncontrollable rage and panic, Theon—remembering his axe-throwing skills (which had now transformed into trash-throwing)—swung and threw the vial with all his might. He aimed at Snape, but his disoriented brain and squinted eyes played a cruel joke. The vial flew past the professor, soared high into the air, described a perfect arc, and with a piercing jingle, flew into the open window of the Great Hall, where a formal lunch was just taking place. TINKle! Inside the hall, the vial hit Dumbledore’s golden goblet and shattered into millions of sparkling splashes. A silvery mist instantly filled the entire room, enveloping the tables, teachers, and hundreds of students. Silence fell. A silence so deep you could hear a drop of turkey fat falling. Snape and Theon, standing at the gate, froze. From the open window came Dumbledore’s voice: — Um… Excuse me… But why am I wearing this dress? And who is this bearded old man in the mirror? — Then came McGonagall’s voice: — I… I feel a strange desire to catch a mouse, but I don’t know why I’m sitting on a chair and not on a rug. Meow — Half of the students and nearly the entire teaching staff had instantly lost their memory. LMAO! Neville Longbottom decided he was a cactus and tried to take root in a plate of soup. Draco Malfoy began to claim that his father was a house-elf named Dobby and demanded a sock. Hagrid forgot he was a half-giant and, frightened by his own size, tried to hide under the table, flipping it over along with all the food. ROFL! Snape’s potion was too strong. The school of magic had turned into a massive madhouse where no one even remembered how to hold a fork, let alone spells. Ultimate cringe. Ten minutes later, five Aurors from the Ministry of Magic, led by Kingsley Shacklebolt, apparated to the Hogwarts gates. They found an epic scene: Snape was sliding down the wall in a near-fainting state, and Theon Pastajoy was sitting in his shack, gnawing on the collar of a robe and mumbling: — I won… I redeemed everyone… Now we’re all good friends! — — What happened here? — Kingsley asked thunderously, looking at the smoke billowing from the Great Hall windows. — It was him… — Snape pointed a trembling hand at Theon. — He committed a terrorist act against the collective memory of Britain — The Aurors didn’t waste time. Theon was dragged out of the shack by his legs. His «bald hedgehogs» on his forehead faded as anti-magic shackles snapped onto his wrists. — Theon Pastajoy — Kingsley pronounced officially. — For mass memory-erasure of the school’s leadership, for the destruction of the educational process, and for simply being intolerably annoying to the entire magical community… You are sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban — Theon didn’t even resist. As he was led to the boat, he looked at Hogwarts one last time. — There… my friends stayed there… — he sobbed. — Tell Dumbledore that hedgehogs are two, not one… — Azkaban met him with a cold that was worse than the Dreadfort chill. Dementors—creatures that feed on joy—floated to Theon’s cage on the very first day. They prepared to suck all the happy memories out of him. But facing Theon’s mind, the Dementors experienced a shock. They tried to find joy but stumbled only upon: The smell of boiled horseflesh, a spinning centrifuge with vomit, a conversation with the dead Jeor Mormont, swollen lumps on a forehead, and the endless, piercing «clop-clop» sound made by bare heels on a stage. One of the Dementors, having tasted the «flavor» of Theon’s memory of tying a sack with his own gut, made a strange gurgling sound and simply dropped dead, turning into a pile of old burlap. LMAO! The rest of the Azkaban guards flew away from his cell in terror. Theon Pastajoy sat in the corner of the darkest cell in Azkaban. He drew a little man with two huge lumps instead of eyebrows on the wall with charcoal. — I’m home now — he whispered, pulling the only surviving dry noodle from the folds of his rags. — There is no Cersei here. There is no Ramsay. There’s only me and my hedgehogs — The entire magical world shuddered, remembering the «Great Pastajoy Amnesia,» and Theon finally found what he wanted—he became a legend that even those who have no soul feared. In the prison records, he was listed as «Prisoner #0 — Dangerous to Mental Health.» And in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, a portrait of Theon hung for a long time, which Dumbledore—when his memory returned—ordered covered with a black cloth so that no one would feel the urge to «shuffle» through the school corridors ever again. LMAO! The cringe legacy.