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

Azkaban greeted Theon Pastajoy not with screams of terror, but with a tomb-like, musty silence. The Dementors, those great devourers of hope, flew around his cell in a wide arc. The air around Theon was so saturated with concentrated shame and humiliation that even sightless creatures felt nauseous. Theon was lonely. He sat in the corner, stroking his brow ridges, and suddenly discovered with horror that his «bald hedgehogs»—those dear, pulsing lumps—had begun to subside. The swelling was going down. In their place, the pathetic, thin hairs of new eyebrows were sprouting. — No… — he whispered, dropping a tear into his prison slop. — My friends… My little bald companions… Don’t leave me! — Despair demanded an audience. At that moment, a Dementor slowly floated past his bars. It looked tired—apparently, it had just sucked the joy out of some Death Eater and caught a case of indigestion. Theon gripped the bars of the cage. — Hey! Shadow! Want to hear a joke? — he shouted. The Dementor froze. It had never heard a prisoner offer it humor before. It flew closer, spreading a wave of cold. — Listen… — Theon giggled nervously, smearing snot across his face. — So, Ramsay Bolton is sitting in the cellar, sharpening a knife, and he asks Reek: «Reek, why are you so sad? I haven’t even skinned the skin off your left heel yet!». And Reek answers him: «Master, I’m just afraid that if you take it off, I won’t be able to walk over to serve you». Ha-ha! Get it? — Theon began to laugh frantically, slapping his palms against his knees. The Dementor froze. In its ancient consciousness, which had seen thousands of years of suffering, something snapped. The level of absurdity and second-hand embarrassment radiating from Theon exceeded the critical limit. The Dementor began to tremble finely. Its black shroud started to turn gray; it made a sound like a whistling, leaky kettle, and before Theon’s eyes, it simply… popped. The creature crumbled into gray dust, unable to withstand the weight of this «anecdote». LOOL! An hour later, Aurors burst into the cell. — This is impossible! — Kingsley Shacklebolt shouted. — He killed a Dementor with the power of his cringe! He can’t be kept here! If he tells one more joke, Azkaban will fall apart! Throw him back to the portal! He’s too shameful for a magical prison! — Theon was grabbed by his armpits and, with everyone disgustedly looking away, thrown into a boat. He was back in the forest near Hogwarts. But when he ran to the gates, a blow awaited him: his magnificent shack of dirty robes was gone. Hagrid had burned it down, performing an exorcism on the site. Theon, sobbing, made his way into the castle through a kitchen hatch. He wandered the corridors, feeling absolutely naked. His eyebrows had fully grown back. His forehead was smooth. — I’m normal… — he sobbed, touching his new brows. — I’m just Pastajoy… Give me back my hedgehogs! It hurts so much to be normal! It’s so boring and sad! — Theon moped. In the third-floor corridor, he ran into Harry Potter. Harry, who had just returned from Quidditch practice, stared suspiciously at the haggard, grown man in rags who was touching his eyebrows and crying. — Er… hi? — Harry said cautiously. — Who are you? And… how old are you, anyway? You don’t look like a first-year — Theon froze. The question of age hit him right in the heart. He looked at young Harry. Theon was in his thirties, but in his soul, he still wanted to be sorted into Hufflepuff and given a free robe. He felt an unbearable shame that he, the old «Geyser», was trying to fit in with children. Peak cringe. — I… I… — Theon turned red so deeply that his new eyebrows twitched. He couldn’t squeeze out a single word. Shame paralyzed him. He simply turned around and, with a wild cry of terror, bolted down the corridor, covering his face with his hands. — Hey, wait! — Harry shouted, but Theon was already flying down the stairs, not looking where he was going. He burst onto a landing just as Madam Hooch was passing by. She was carrying a bundle of new brooms and whistling something. Theon, blinded by tears and shame, crashed into her at full speed. — Out of the wa-a-ay! — was all he managed to shout. The impact was so strong that the fragile Madam Hooch flew off the landing. She fell three flights down. A horrific, dry CRACK echoed. Theon froze, looking down. Madam Hooch lay on the stone floor in an unnatural pose. Her neck was broken at an impossible angle. She had died instantly, without even letting go of the brooms. — Oh no… — Theon whispered. — I… I messed up again — A commotion rose in Hogwarts. The funeral bell tolled. Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape descended to the body. The school went into mourning. Snape looked up at the trembling Theon, and such hatred flared in his eyes that the air around him began to boil. — Pastajoy…! — Dumbledore growled. His voice was no longer kind. — You killed our flight instructor. You destroyed the school’s memory. You killed a guard of Azkaban. You are a walking curse — Theon was seized by magical bindings. He was dragged through the entire castle to the very grove where the portal pulsed. Students stood along the corridors, and in their eyes there was no laughter—only pure, cold hatred. Because of this «freak», their favorite flight teacher was dead. — Forever! — McGonagall cried out. — Because of you, Theon Greyjoy, we are closing the path between worlds! No child from your cursed Westeros will ever cross the threshold of this school again! You stole magic from your own future! — Theon was kicked into the portal with a heavy swing. He flew into the glowing abyss, and the last thing he heard was the sound of a door closing and Dumbledore’s words: «Seal it forever». The portal in the Winterfell godswood snapped shut, turning into an ordinary gray stone. Magic left Westeros. Children in White Harbor and Starfall, who dreamed of letters from Hogwarts, never received them. All because of one man. Theon tumbled out into the dirty snow of Dreadfort, right onto those very coals Cersei had scattered. His eyebrows were in place, but his soul was as empty as ever. Ramsay Bolton stood nearby, picking at his teeth with a bone. He saw Theon, who had appeared out of nowhere for the second time, covered in broom feathers and smelling of a professor’s death. — O-o-oh! — Ramsay clapped his hands joyfully. — Look at that! Our Pasta Centrifuge is back from his voyage! What, did you fly in a sack again? Or were you kicked out even from hell for bad jokes? — Ramsay walked over and kicked Theon in the stomach with all his might. — You’re not just Reek anymore. You are — The Back-and-Forth Traveler! The great wanderer between shame and catastrophe! — Theon lay in the mud, looking at the gray Northern sky. He knew the portal was gone. He knew he had killed the only person who could have taught him to fly. He closed his eyes, and his new, thick eyebrows became wet with his tears. — I am Reek… — he whispered. — The Back-and-Forth Traveler… — Ramsay burst out laughing and ordered Theon to be given his dog bowl. But this time the pasta was cold, and at the bottom of the bowl lay a small, dry worm that seemed to mockingly remind him of his failed redemption. Theon’s shame was absolute: he had become the man who closed the door to a fairy tale for an entire world. LMAO.