Spiky
Tom did not bother trying to be polite when he went up to the girl to take the stupid bird from her. He simply walked over to her at lunch and held out his hand.
“You have something of mine. Give it back,” he said curtly. The bird seemed to have grasped that he was doing what it wanted, because it stopped making that terrible noise that felt like someone yanking on his magic.
Warren was too dense to be offended. She smiled - oh, no, worse, she made moon eyes at him, ugh, why? - and took the chick off of her shoulder and plunked it into his hand.
“Here you go,” she said cheerfully, and added to the bird, “I told you he’d come around, didn’t I? Her name’s Spiky and she likes raspberries the best, but she also likes other kinds of fruit, especially if you slice it, and sometimes she eats vegetables, too. We couldn’t get her to eat any meat or bread or dairy. She doesn’t like when people grab her so you should be gentle picking her up. We tried making her a nest to sleep in but she doesn’t really sleep so you have to give her a book to read instead. She can’t open the cover by herself, though, so -”
“Thank you, but I don’t need your help to take care of a baby bird,” he said coldly. “And her name is not Spiky. Honestly.”
He whirled to go back to his own table, but Warren kept talking anyway.
“What is it, then?”
“I haven’t decided!” he called over his shoulder without pausing in his steps.
“Will you go to Hogsmeade with me?” Warren all but yelled across the hall at his back.
Tom flinched so badly he nearly squished the chick. Its claws scraped sharply on his palm and it grabbed one of his knuckles with an unexpectedly strong beak.
“Absolutely not!” he yelled back, and walked faster. “Good god. That girl is nuts.”
The chick in his hand let go of his knuckle and chattered disapprovingly.
“Oh, no. I did not ask for this. You do not get to sit on my shoulder and make judgemental noises in my ear,” he muttered at the tiny creature as he sat down.
It bit his knuckle rather harder that time. So he dropped it on the table.
He had assumed it wouldn’t like that, but it must be sturdier than it seemed, because it acted like it did not care at all about the hard landing. It stood up and stretched its ugly little half-feathered wings and looked around curiously.
He could see why they’d named it Spiky. It was, indeed, covered in spikes. Those yellowish pinfeathers were sticking out all over the place. He couldn’t decide whether it was more ugly or less ugly than it had been on the day it arrived. It was better at walking, though. Those big feet were still clumsy, but it seemed to have figured out how to use them.
He was not going to hand feed it sliced fruit. No, he was not.