The humour of the whole thing lessened for Ernie with Harry's growl. He put his hand on Harry's back, lending him his support despite the laughter and joking he'd done so far. He was ready to take drastic measures should Harry be overly affected by the display - measures for Ernie being a hug and dragging him out of the room.
"Hey, I'm sorry mate. I know it's Skeeter and I don't expect anything less from her, but it's still not fair. Why don't we move on to the cauldron bottoms or something like that, all right?"