Ernest honestly had no idea what he had been expecting his daughter to say (he had very few expectations regarding little girls in general, and the fact that this one shared half of his DNA did not make much of a material difference in that regard), but he was taken aback at her apparent zeal for solving the imaginary problem.

"I imagine their parents have moved on," he commented dryly, unsure of what else to really say on the matter. These were people that didn't actually exist, after all, so he was finding it hard to muster up any sympathy for their pretend plight. He had very little sympathy for real people with real problems, when those people and problems didn't directly impact his life. "They'd all be adults now, you know, if you did turn them back. Adults who have never done anything except croak and hop." Not exactly the most marketable job skills. If they were returned to their human forms, they'd likely just be a drain on their families or on society. They were better off as toads, really.

Except of course they were, because they'd never been people in the first place. He was getting caught up in the fabric of the story he had lazily woven.

"But if it's really important to you, I'm sure you could manage it," he said, albeit without a great deal of conviction — Flora was far more likely to follow in her mother's footsteps than become any sort of transfiguration expert. "When you're an adult."