title: Still/Life
author: Sirikit
rating: K
summary: A series of small likenesses. Hufflepuff gen (Susan, Ernie, Zacharias, Hannah, Justin, not necessarily in that order).
a/n: These are basically sketches that I've been doing to try to figure out the characters. Figured I could corral some together into something resembling a fic. Lyrics from The Knife.

We share our mothers' health
It is what we've been dealt?
What's in it for me?
Fine; then I'll agree

He was born fussy, was fussy as a child, grew up to become a fussy young man. Along with this fussiness Ernie has kept the baby-like roundness of his face, the large-eyed stare. He often wonders if this is why people never seem to take him seriously. After all, at school he got called everything from swot to insufferable twat and a number of other very rude things besides. No one calls him that anymore, not to his face, but Ernie hears the implications all the same, slid between the commonplaces and generalities of his new adult life.

(Ernie tries not to mind, though it's hard. He reminds himself that disdain is the price he has to pay for the privilege of giving people good advice. He is sure they will thank him later.)

But he suspects there is a formula that he hasn't quite yet grasped, some quality of empathy that he hasn't yet perfected. In the topography of Ernie's concerns he has classified this as a Problem To Be Solved, category Person/Personality, where it exists alongside similar goals such as 'perfect your handshake - it makes a difference', 'be inspirational!', and 'learn to dance in a way that doesn't look like you were bitten by a bowtruckle in the arse.'

(The devil is in the details, or so he's heard, and he spends his time in pursuit of trivialities.)

It takes him years to realize that he is more than a little bit ridiculous. Too many years, maybe, because in the end he thinks it might have been the reason he lost Hannah.