“He shouldn’t be defined by his species, you know?”
Literally what the hell was Kit even talking about. Half the point of Magizoobotany was that you defined things by their species. They were putting things in this greenhouse because of the plants’ species. You couldn’t go around asking poisonous, carnivorous plants what they wanted to be when they grew up just in case one of them wanted to be a vegan pacifist. If they tried putting Ferninand in a sunny corner so he could defy his origins, he’d probably die. See, this was why you couldn’t reason with Kit. Even when you were just saying an uncontroversial fact, she was so full of insane troll logic and so wrong that you couldn’t even argue with her. She spoke her own nonsense language and god help you if you tried to translate.
Now, Elliot could see the mistake he had made. He’d let Kit cast the movement spell instead of casting it himself. He should’ve known better than to let her be in charge of Ferninand, or magic, or anything ever. And then the timing… yeah, he got where he’d gone wrong. He just wanted to piss her off, not give her a reason to literally try to kill him.
Fortunately he had his wand in his hand, so when he saw the boa constrictor plant hurtling toward him, the instincts from three years of Dueling Club kicked into gear and he raised his wand and shouted “Depulso!” The Banishing Charm sent Ferninand hurtling back toward Kit instead. Maybe not the most elegant solution, but Elliot certainly didn’t want to get strangled.