Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Season 1, Round 4
Team: reserve for The BallyCastle Bats
Position: Chaser #3
Main Prompt: an owl's POV
Additional/Optional Prompts: none
The Little Striped One scratched at the bottom of her cage. Feces were caked to the metal of it. It had been seven moons since she had been taken out of this cage for the human to clean it. The smell was starting to make her dizzy. It was an awful, potent one. She shook her leg, trying to rid her foot of the gunk that had stuck to it during her attempt to make a bare spot to sleep in.
The Little Stripe One didn't even have a perch to lounge on. The human who was supposed to be caring for her thought she didn't deserve one. And maybe the human was right; she had always tried to do what she was supposed to do but failed at every task that she had been given. She couldn't even hold a bag of coins properly, ending up dropping it every time. That was no good; she'd never make a good companion if she couldn't handle carrying around a package to deliver.
When she was younger, her peers had told her that she probably wouldn't even make it as a common delivery owl, which was the most hated position for an owl to ever want. Common delivery owls were never given a companion. They were never loved, and depending on the type of master they got, they were hardly fed well, relying more on their natural hunting instincts to live on.
Such a life was a hard, quick one. Most common delivery owls were overworked, having little time to get what they personally needed, so it was rare for one to make it to an old age.
Every owl's dream was to find a decent companion, one that would care for them and allow them time to hunt (for sport, not because they had to) and fly. Every owl wanted a human who would love them and give them treats, talk to them and train them.
The Little Striped One didn't even know what half of that really meant. She had never experienced any of it. When she was first born in a hatchery, she had been thoroughly checked over for physical appearance and health, passing the inspection. She was then boxed up with a hundred other babies, who noisily expressed how hot and thirsty they were. The Little Striped One also 'peeped' with need. She was just as uncomfortable as they were.
From there, she (and her fellow peers) had been shipped to a breeder where she spent almost thirty moons. During that time, she didn't grow much; everyone else grew to at least twice her size.
Getting food had been so difficult for her! She was often pecked at, sometimes she even bled from their abuse! When the breeder noticed this, she had been put up for sale quickly.
"She is too small for breeding," the breeder told a potential buyer.
"That's alright, mate! I bet I could train her and sell her to a neighbor!"
"I don't think she'll be very useful," the breeder said, shaking his large head. "But if anyone can train her, it'd be you."
The Little Striped One tried her best to follow through with the trainer's exercises, but she got tired easily and was thirsty all of the time. The trainer worked with her for several upon several moons before he finally gave up.
"So which one ya gettin' rid of, Sam?"
"The little, striped one over there."
"Aye, it is little…"
"I told you so— do you want her or not? I'm already losing three Galleons from what I originally bought her for, I'd rather not lose anything more."
"What's wrong with it? Why can't it be trained?"
"Her feet are too small to grasp anything, she can't deliver much of anything; not even a note."
The potential buyer thoroughly thought it over. "I'll see if my son will want it."
But the buyer's son didn't want The Little Striped One. He didn't know why his father would think such a thing since she couldn't be of any use to the young wizard who needed a decent companion for school. And so the buyer dumped the useless young owl off in a forest.
It was a long, scary night for The Little Striped One. She was cold and hungry. It had rained, and the branch that she had flown to offered her no shelter.
She cried and cried for many moons after the rain. Some owls stopped by, asking why she was crying, and one tried showing her how to hunt for a mouse, but she had scared off the critter too early as she had been extremely eager to catch it, having been near starvation.
The others laughed at her, and the one that tried showing her how to hunt told her to go back to the city where she belonged.
She flew off, sad and ashamed, flying for as long as the moon lasted until she saw a building.
A human would surely feed her here!
Exhausted, she lowered down, losing strength, and smacked into a window. Her sight and hearing disappeared. She went to sleep.
She couldn't remember how she got to where she was now, stored in a cage, hanging in a dark, dingy, quiet place, with several other misfit owls like herself.
She didn't speak much to the others, instead, she listened to their conversations and explanations on how they arrive there: Bardley's Owl Recovery. Bardley was what his fellow humans called him. Bardley was the neglectful human who thought the owls only needed their cages cleaned every seven moons.
The Little Striped One learned how to tell how many moons passed by a contraption that hung on the flat surface in front of her. One of the other owls explained how it worked and spoke about hands and numbers. It had all been confusing to learn at first, but The Little Striped One understood the clock after a month, and knew how to tell 'time' from then on.
She had been stuck there for what The Bald One said was four months. He told her that he doubted he or she would ever get out of the place he called "The Hole in the Ground".
The Bald One was old, one of the 'lucky' delivery owls who had made it past his prime, and had been replaced with a younger, faster owl. He had been sent straight to The Hole in the Ground from the delivery company he had worked at.
The other owls accompanying the room wanted to know how The Little Striped One ended up there, but she didn't want to admit the real reason, not wanting them to laugh because of her uselessness. They all had been terrific, useful owls, only having been brought here after their companions had died or after they had gotten injured, unable to serve anymore. But The Little Striped One had never been successful at anything in her life. She quietly told them that she had gotten lost. It was the most honest thing she could come up with.
The entry to the room they were in opened, and a warm, but pleasant breeze swept in. The owls rose up from the floor of their cages, perking up at the idea of food. The Little Striped One lowered herself back down in disappointment when she had seen that the human was empty-handed. She watched with her naturally wide eyes as another human came in right behind Bardley.
"You know, you could clean the cages more often," the stranger scrutinized, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
'At least you don't have to try living in it,' The Little Striped One thought.
"The law only says that I have to do it twice a week," Bardley replied.
"Don't think that I don't know how much an owl poops, Bardley."
"You want them or not, Lupin? They're extremely low priced— not worth my time in trying to mend. If you don't take them, we both know what will happen to them."
"As always, you know the perfect thing to say to make a sale," the stranger muttered.
He then clicked his tongue at The Bald One. "Hi there, fellah!"
The Bald One twisted his head to look at the human who spoke to him and let out a "hoo", greeting him back.
'Some humans are nice,' The Bald One informed the others as the stranger moved on down the line of cages, speaking softly to each one. 'This human seems like one of the friendlier ones. Some nice ones even give us treats!'
And, as if to prove what The Bald One had said, the nice human reached into his pocket and pulled out a sack of crackers, holding up one to The Little Striped One's cage when he had approached it.
The smell was divine, something she had never smelled before, so she stood up slowly and walked to the front of her cage with her wings sprawled out in caution. The stranger didn't move a muscle as she leaned toward his way, taking the cracker from where it poked through a slit of her cage. The Little Striped One hurried back to the corner where she usually slept at, eating her gift, enjoying every last crumb of it. When she was finished, she watched closely as the kind human gave every one of the owls a cracker of their own.
She wanted another; it was very good. She flapped her wings before stilling them and hooted.
'Can't I have another, kind stranger?' She edged back up to the front of her cage, stepping from one foot to the other in anticipation.
Soon everyone else was asking for another too, and all the owls were hooting or clicking their beaks excitedly.
"I'll take them all, of course!" the stranger said with a laugh. "I'll find homes for them!"
*/*
Several humans were crowded around The Little Striped One's cage. She squawked in nervousness, hopping up onto a perch that the human who now took care of her had given her.
She was happy now, except for the crowd of young humans surrounding her, where her human had carried her cage outside, setting it onto a flat stump to a tree that had once stood. Some of the smaller humans were excited, some were bored, some were dirty, and some were clean.
The human she was now used to handling her was named Teddy, she learned. He told the younger humans to back away from the cage as he opened the door, speaking softly so he wouldn't spook her.
She trusted Teddy Lupin, who had shown her what The Bald One had told her: kindness, compassion, and care. She had learned what it was like to have a companion, and she treasured every moment of her new life, grateful for it.
"Professor Lupin, what kind of owl is this?" one of the younger humans asked with interest after they had all watched the owl emerge from the cage and climb onto his shoulder. Teddy gave her a cracker; a treat for doing it.
"This is Tiny Feet," Teddy introduced, petting down her silky feathers along her chest.
Yes, she had been given a name. No longer was she known as "The Little Striped One".
"...and she's an owl from North America called a saw-whet. Isn't she pretty, class?"
"Is she yours?" a female human asked.
"Yes, Miss Longbottom. Tiny Feet is my companion, and I am hers." He affectionately nuzzled his face into her back, and Tiny Feet happily clicked her beak in pure joy, happy with the human who didn't care if she was small and incapable of being useful. He loved her dearly, happy enough that she merely existed.
And she returned those feelings; every day.