"I don't think so..." She trails off, turning back to her parcel, which was written to the brim with explanations and formulae in precise cursive. She'll have to finalize her essay before submitting their class worksheet. Her hand grabs the quill and dips the tip of the feather into the pink ink.

Some shuffling caught her ears and she tilts her head to the sound. She pauses. Keith must be having a hard time with the equipment. Pidge lays the quill by the edge of paper, careful not to let the pink wet tip blotch the parcel. She straightens from her seat and turns to her partner, who has his face scrunched up at the test tubes before him.

Hm. Cute. She snorts. The sound of her voice lifts him from his indecision and he lifts a brow.

"Is there something on my face?" He asks. She shakes her head, smile blooming on her face with flushed cheeks. Pidge approaches his side of the table and lifts a test tube filled with insects.

"Take a half of this," She pours half of it on cauldron, where the is already broiling in dark purple, and stirs the mixture clockwise. Three times. Counterclockwise for five more times. She returns the test tube on its holder and takes another one that sparkled cut obsidian gems. She glances at him, feeling her cheeks heat at his unreadable stare. Pidge clamps her upper lip from curling and returns to her work, explaining the procedure.

"And so.." She continues. Every stare draws shivers down her spine. Her eyes once again finds the date on the parcel, and her mind drags out a reminder that the annual Halloween ball is only two days away. Her mind also likes to feed out a little factoid that word around the class says that Keith doesn't have a date. She thinks of the emerald ensemble sitting at the back of her closet already ironed and scented with vanilla.

Her volition drives those unsaid thoughts back at the closet, locked and sealed as she finishes the procedure. She's been rambling instead of explaining now, and she notices that he notices that she notices so Pidge says nothing more but a smile and places her attention in fixing her things.

Their worksheet has already been polished and ready for submission. She smiles at her penmanship, scanning the paper one last time before leaving her seat. A hand grabs at her wrist and she turns to her partner.

"Hey," he says and then goes on with a few verbal crutches before shoving a small piece of paper into her palm. He abruptly stands up and manages to blurt a farewell before rushing out of the classroom, his face obviously beet red for reason she can't come up. Her gaze flickers to the long line of students submitting their paperwork and then back again to the mysterious paper. Her heart rate shoots up as she straightens out the crumpled paper. Written out on legible printed font was:

Will you go out with me? - Yes - No

Pidge didn't like the way this potion smelled. The aroma had an odd resemblance to salty, rotten leaves—which she'd never come across before, but certainly did not enjoy.

“What is that potion supposed to do?” Keith asked, leaning closer to look into the small, bubbling cauldron. He kept his arms folded, out of respect for her repeated warnings not to touch anything. All of this was new to him, a fascinating world of magic and potions he didn't know existed until a week previous.

“Permanently change eye color,” Pidge said. “But it apparently has a side effect of thinning hair, so I'm trying to see if I can combine it with something that will nullify that.”

Keith wasn't interested in eye colors or thinning hair and went back to wandering the kitchen. One half of Pidge's kitchen had the normal pots and pans, cooking utensils, canned foods, and quick snacks like crackers and peanut butter. The other half had odds and ends like sage, cauldrons, owl eyes, and potion recipe books sporting titles like 101 Recipes for Full Moons, The Ultimate Potions Tome, and Quick Anti-Nuisance Potions: Clear Your Home of Bugs, Cryptids, and Neighbors!

Keith opened a cupboard to find a stash of completed potions, all labeled carefully in Pidge's clean handwriting. Before he could read any, though, something exploded behind him with a gush of force, sending goo flying all over the kitchen.

“Quiznak,” Pidge cursed, potion covering her glasses and hair. The force of the blast imbedded the cauldron in the ceiling and left bits of dust floating down. “Don't swallow any of the—Keith, look out!”

Potions teetered on the shelves, some of them tipping out. Keith jumped into action and snatched three before they hit the floor, but he didn't see the fourth.

The thin glass shattered as it connected with the top of his head, enveloping him in a cloud of pink smoke. Keith sneezed and the three potions he held shattered around his feet in messes of varying viscosity.

Pidge lost sight of Keith in the smoke. Covering her nose and mouth with her sleeve, she ran across the messy tiles to pull him out.

The cloud slowly dispersed, revealing an empty heap of Keith's clothes. Or, mostly empty. Something buried under his black shirt was sneezing up a storm.

Heart racing and head pounding, Pidge yanked at the clothes on the floor, trying to find what was underneath.

A black cat with fluffy ears sneezed repeatedly, its head twisting and ears twitching with each sneeze.

“Oh, no,” Pidge whispered. She picked the cat up, trying to keep it away from the broken glass and unknown potions on the floor, and held it close to her chest as she escaped the kitchen to the living room. “Keith, if you can understand me, meow or something.*

He didn't, only clawing at her shirt to find purchase as his sneezing fit finally ended. His claws snagged in her shirt.

Pidge swore.

Hunk arrived less than a half hour later. “Where is he?”

“I shut him in my room so I could clean up the kitchen,” Pidge said, fidgeting with the bright yellow dishwashing gloves she had on to protect herself from the mess of potions. “Hunk, the label for the potion got ruined by other broken potions and I don't know exactly what animal potion it was that changed him! I don't know if it's temporary or–or permanent or—”

Hunk held up his hands placatively. “Pidge, deep breaths. We'll get Keith back to normal.”

“And then he won't want to speak to me ever again!” Pidge cried. “He only just found out I'm a witch, Hunk, in case you don't remember!”

“We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, all right? Let me help you clean the kitchen first.”

“It's mostly clean, I just…”

“Yeah?”

“...I'm not tall enough to get the cauldron out of the ceiling.”

Hunk looked up and his jaw dropped. “By the moon, Pidge!”

Pidge ran a hand through her hair and grimaced when she reached dried clumps.

Hunk noticed. “You go get cleaned up and I'll finish here. Then we'll figure out what that potion was.”

With the kitchen clean, Pidge showered, and Keith’s clothes switched from the washer to the dryer, she let Keith out of her room so Hunk could get a look at what exactly happened.

Keith dashed out of the room and under the couch before they could catch him, forcing them both to get down on the soft carpet and smash their faces up to the short gap between the couch and the floor.

Hunk pulled out his phone and flipped on the flashlight, doing his best not to shine it right in Keith’s eyes. There, they finally got a good look at him.

His black fur looked incredibly soft and a little fluffy, but most of the fluff was around his ears. Large, purple eyes stared back at them.

“Here, kitty kitty,” Hunk tried, making kissing sounds.

Keith didn’t move.

Pidge sat back. “Well, he’s probably okay where he is. As long as all my windows and doors stay closed, I think I can let him wander around.” She glanced at the nearest window to see the sun had already set and blue hour was in full swing. “I should get started looking through my potion books...see if I can figure out which potion I used.”

“Well, you color code your potions, right? The ones you like, used, or adjusted? That should help.”

“True. But it’s still going to take some time…”

Hunk frowned. “I’ll come back tomorrow morning and check on you, okay? I can’t stay tonight because I have a couple potions going that take new ingredients every night for a month.”

Pidge winced at the thought. “You’re way too patient for your own good. Thanks for your help, though.”

“Of course.”

Pidge made herself tea to soothe her nerves before spreading out all her potions paperwork and books on the living room floor. A quick check confirmed that Keith hadn’t moved from under the couch, so she opened a can of tuna and left it as close to him as she could. “It’s not catnip or anything but it’s what I’ve got.”

He didn’t respond, but she hadn’t expected him to. With a sigh, she finally turned to her research. Setting aside the books she knew didn’t cover transformation or she hadn’t used since her early days as a practicing witch was easy enough. She never kept potions past their expirations, so she likely had a time period of about five months to work with, considering the type of potion and the fact that it was gaseous instead of liquid.

As she went through, Keith slowly made his way out of hiding. At first, he just watched her, but then he turned to the tuna. Pidge’s ears perked when she heard him begin to chew and she glanced over as surreptitiously as possible, only to find him looking right at her as he ate. She quickly looked away, not wanting to scare him back under the couch.

When Keith finished with the tuna (not that the tuna was gone, he was just done), he sat and watched Pidge, his tail slowly flicking back and forth. As the night went on he, slowly moved closer and closer.

“Keith, it’s great that you’re not scared of me anymore, but get off my notes,” Pidge said at two in the morning. She tried to shoo him away from her papers, but instead he ran around behind her and curled against her thigh. Pidge sighed. “You can sit there as long as you still let me move around when I need to.”

Keith looked up at her with those purple eyes and her heart melted. Hesitantly, she reached out slowly and stroked his fur. Keith didn’t run and, after a few strokes, actually began to purr. Pidge laughed. “You’re too cute for your own good.”

She attempted to get back to researching, but Keith wasn’t done getting attention. He climbed into her lap and rubbed his head against her arm, still purring loudly. Pidge rubbed her eyes. “All right, all right. I’ll take a break for you.”

She picked him up, trying not to laugh and the odd flexibility cats had, and laid on the couch with him in her arms. He curled up, his fluffy tail flicking lazily, and watched her to make sure she was still going to pet him. She did, running her hand from the top of his head to his tail. His eyes slowly closed and Pidge’s own eyes grew heavy. Soon, both of them fell asleep.

Pidge woke up shortly after sunrise with cat Keith still on her chest. She sighed in dismay. “Not temporary, then.”

She laid still, studying his whiskers and pink nose for a while before slowly getting up. This woke Keith, but she set him down on the couch and he promptly fell back asleep. Pidge wandered into the kitchen, thinking a strong pot of coffee was in order. The coffee was almost done when she heard a startled cry from the living room.

A startled human cry.

Pidge ran out of the kitchen and to the living room immediately. “Keith! Keith, you’re not a cat anym—”

“Pidge, I’m naked!”

Pidge, eyes wide and now looking at the ceiling, immediately backtracked. “I didn’t see anything! Sorry! I’ll get your clothes really quick.”

She snatched his clothes out of the laundry room and threw them into the living room without looking.

“What happened?” Keith demanded as he got dressed. “I don’t remember anything!”

“Nothing at all?”

“Nothing.”

Pidge seriously considered lying. Anything to get out of confessing he’d been changed into a cat. But she didn’t have a good story, and he deserved the truth.

“Look, Keith…”

“Don’t start it like that,” he called back. “You’re scaring me.”

“One of the potions in the cupboard turned you into a cat for a while!” she blurted.

The sounds of shuffling in the living room came to a halt. For a moment, silence.

“A cat?”

“Yes, sorry. A cat. And I wasn’t sure if it was temporary or not, so I kind of panicked, but I think it all wore off and shouldn’t have any side effects.”

Keith walked into the kitchen, fully clothed, and folded his arms. “The last thing I remember is stuff falling out of that cupboard.” He gestured with his head to the offending cupboard.

“Yeah,” Pidge confirmed. “It was one of those.” She blushed and looked down at her feet. “Keith, I really am sorry. I understand if you don’t want to come by anymore or...be my friend. Stuff like this happens sometimes, so I can’t promise it won’t happen ag—”

“Are you kidding?” Keith interrupted.

Pidge looked up to see him smiling.

He rubbed the back of his head. “I mean, I don’t want to be turned into a cat again, but...you can really do that. You can change people into cats. That’s...that’s amazing, Pidge.”

A smile crept up her cheeks. “You think so?”

Keith nodded, his face turning red. He looked away. “Yeah. And...I’d like to keep learning about what you do.”

Pidge lunged forward to wrap him in a tight hug. Keith, startled, took a moment to reciprocate.

“Thanks, Keith,” she said. “I’ll tell you about all of it.”