Hufflepuffs finally get their due in hilarious new Harry Potter-inspired play

Spend any time on the internet, and you'll notice that Hufflepuffs -- despite J.K. Rowling's best efforts -- have become a bit of a pop culture joke.

Enter Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic, a hilarious new off-Broadway play that seeks to correct the record a bit as well as take you through the seven insane years of Harry Potter through the eyes of people who were close to the action, but still a safe distance away.

"The thing that was really appealing to me was all of these events that take place in the [Harry Potter] books would be very traumatizing to all the other kids at the school and we never really get to see the other children’s reactions," Puffs writer Matt Cox told Mashable about the idea for the spoof. "That would be terrifying if things just kept getting worse and worse every year!" Meet the group of terrified teens that the show calls "The Puffs." As Harry and his friends have adventures and repeatedly save the day, this gang is hiding out in the common room, failing in their quest to score points and hoping that at some point Herbology will be considered cool.

This is no Cursed Child. Puffs is, quite simply, hysterical. For Potter fans, it is both a love letter to the series (and the nineties) as well as a knowing spoof of all the ridiculous plot points and shenanigans that go down at Hogwarts. Seriously: If you were a student, imagine how bored you would be watching the second task of the Triwizard Tournament!

For anyone still having passionate debates about Snape and Lily or wondering how the hell a school let dementors and dragons hang out there, Puffs makes you feel like you've finally been heard, allowing fans the great moment of smugly turning to a friend and declaring, "Yup, Justin Finch-Fletchley is perfectly annoying, but I bet he'd be fun to have around."

"There’s a certain pop culture stigma to [Hufflepuffs]," Cox explains, "and so it felt right to be able to tell their side of the story through these terrifying seven years and also make it also a little bit of a celebration of the side characters."

Puffs is currently playing at the Elektra Theatre in NYC through the end of the year.