Disclaimer: World of Harry Potter is property of J. K. Rowling. Part of the "Snakes and Ladders Challenge" and "The if You Dare Challenge".
Prompt: Obnoxious Behaviour (#268)
Personality Defects
Ernie moaned, his eyes tearing as his hands moved up to cup his nose which was throbbing in pain.
Blinking the moisture away several times, he tried to make sense of what exactly, just happened.
Tracey Davis gave him a dirty look, before whirling away from him, with her long, wavy, auburn hair fanning out around her as she started to march away.
Tracey Davis, possibly one of the most quiet girls in the school... a girl who kept to herself and was virtually invisible... who barely associated with anyone... had just lost her temper. With him.
Moving his hands away from his nose, he frowned as he noticed it came away with blood.
Turning around, he made his way to the Hospital Wing, his cheeks flushing in embarrassment that he had somehow managed to rile the virtually emotionless girl to the point that she actually punched him in the face.
Hannah told him, more than once, about his obnoxious behaviour, and that he should really take pains to curb it. But Ernie wasn't sure what she was talking about. Sure, he made bad judgement calls in the past, but he'd always taken pains to correct them when he realized he was wrong.
He just didn't know what Hannah was going on about.
Reviewing in his head, what just happened with Davis, he wondered at what point he'd said anything to her to make her react so unfavorably.
He was just telling her she had no right to be wandering the dungeons at this hour, he was a Prefect, that was his duty!
Perhaps it was his tone she hadn't appreciated...
Or perhaps he should not have muttered that comment about Slytherins being so arrogant.
He frowned... it's not like he was really wrong on that point! Even Davis walked around like she was too good to associated with anyone outside of Slytherin. She pranced around... okay, not pranced, but all Slytherins seemed to have this way about gliding with their chins perfectly parallel with the ground.
Well not Malfoy, Malfoy just strutted. And his two goons didn't have any grace to speak of. Nor did Millicent Bulstrode. Those three seemed to stomp around.
And then there was Pansy... she was a bit more graceful, and she didn't strut, but she didn't make it seem as effortless and flawless as Davis and Greengrass.
And why the hell was he thinking about the way the Slytherins all walked?!
Perhaps that was what Hannah was talking about. He fixated on things.
His nose wrinkled at the thought that really, he knew what she was referring to, he simply refused to acknowledge it as truth. Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot had both called him pompous when they thought he couldn't hear.
Ernie groaned at the movement of his nose, pain shooting protests to his brain and he told himself not to do that again as he continued to gingerly hold his nose which he hoped had stopped bleeding.
He was not pompous.
Although... perhaps his tone with Davis had sounded a bit self-important.
But really, shouldn't Davis be used to that?
In the end, he resolved as he finally emerged out in the Entrance Hall, it was really Davis' problem. Not his.
~End~
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