I find a large wooden spoon for stirring the potion and pull the stool up beside the cauldron. I sit and add the flower powder little pinches at a time while stirring.

"Why does it feel like I am making a perfume, and not a love potion?" I ask Blizzie. In response he meows and rubs against my legs, circling and rubbing against them like a little kitty shark. Hmm, I wonder what a cat-shark would look like? Cute or horrifying?

I continue to let my mind wander while I mix in the flowers ever so slowly. I needed to add the last pinch once the potion base was boiling, but I needed to keep adding pinches the entire time. Is that why I had to pluck and add so many petals? Hmm, something to ponder.

As the potion has been doing thus far, it continues to change colors. It is currently changing into different shades of pinks and purples, which is logical as those are the colors of the flowers I am adding, aside from the red tulips. Red tulips, pink roses, hyacinths, peonies, lilacs and sweet peas. What do all of these flowers have in common. I know a little too much about the language of flowers, so it doesn't take me long to realize the commonality. They all represent new love.

"I suppose that makes sense. Adding in flowers that represent new love into a love potion. I wonder if Aria is a romantic."

As I add the last pinch of the flower powder to a boiling potion base, I hear a knock at my door. Three knocks, a pause, four knocks, a pause, then three more knocks. Bobby is back. I make my way over to the door with Blizzie close at my heels, but enough away so the I don't trip over him, which I appreciate.

I open the door and see Bobby holding a large sack in his arms.

"Why such a large sack Bobby?" I ask him, curious.

"You had me gathering multiple things. I also thought that we might get hungry, so I got us each a sandwich and something sweet to eat."

"Thanks. That is really thoughtful!" I say and give him a very warm smile. It is sweet that he is thinking about me, even though I am doing this to make amends for something that Poppy did to him. Maybe he is realizing that I don't control Poppy? Or he doesn't want me to get too hungry to keep making his potion.

"You're welcome." he says, then sniffs the air. "What is that smell. It smells more like you are making perfume then you are making a potion." he tells me and looks at me curiously. I'm glad that there isn't any doubt in that look. Also, his suspicion bar hasn't raised.

"I can understand why you feel that way. However, it smells that way because I large amount of the potion base it flowers that mean new love in the language of flowers."

"Oh. I guess that makes sense. Perhaps you don't need to add any other of the smells to it?" he asks and laughs.

"I still may want to, as I am taking some of your pre-chewed food." I remind him.

"I am trying not to think too deeply about that." he admits to me. At least he recognizes that some of this is really weird. And by some of this I mean drugging someone with a love potion.

"Well then, please follow me into the back." I tell him and lead the way.

His reaction is much the same that mine was, looking around at everything wide eyed. He doesn't take too much time looking around though as his focus falls on the potion. He makes his way over to it and looks down into the boiling liquid.

"So, this is the start of the love potion?" he asks me.

"Not to rude, but obviously. Do you see anything else in here that could be a love potion in the making?" I ask him, kindly pointing out how stupid his question is.

"Haha, I guess you are right." he says, beginning to sound a bit nervous. "What do you need me to do?"

"Nothing yet, there are a few more things that I need to add to complete the base. It will be a working love potion once these last few ingredients are added, so be mindful of that." I caution him. I'm not sure what he would do that would make me feel like cautioning him is needed. Who knows though, he might decide that he wants to sample it like he would a new food or drink recipe.

"Good to know." he says and looks around. Finding a second stool he sits down on it and watches me.

I flip open the journal and look for the next ingredients. And here is where it goes from perfume to potion I suppose. I look around at my powders. I will be needing a few of these I suppose. I need a few scoops of powdered butterfly wings, powdered dove hearts from doves that died of natural causes, and powdered newt brains. After that I will need oil of warm thoughts and oil of amorous intent. What the heck is with these ingredients? Witchy, I have become very witchy. Also, how did I get my hands on these? Who sells stuff like this? A dove that died of natural causes? How do they find a dove that just drops dead? Do they go boo! and cause it to have a heart attack?

"What are you adding?" he asks, clearly curious.

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"A few small scoops of powdered butterfly wings." I say and open the powder jar. There is a very tiny scooper in there. I fill it and sprinkle the scoops into the potion. "One small scoop of powdered dove heart." I say and added it. Bobby looks at me, horrified. "It died of natural causes. Next is two small scoops of powdered newt brains." I sprinkle that in and stir the potion a few times. "Lastly is two drops of oil of warm thoughts and four drops of oil of amorous intent." I drop those in and sit to stir it.

"Is this my part now?" He asks me.

"Yes, and it is a little more involved than I told you." I inform him. "First I need you to add your favorite flower and talk about how it makes you think of her. And you must say her name when you add it in."

"I just drop it in whole?" he asks me.

"Nope." I tell him and point to the mortar and pestle. "Crush it up in that while you tell me what about this flower makes you think of her."

"That one is easy." Bobby says tears the flower into enough pieces to fit into the mortar and begins crushing it with the pestle. My favorite flower is baby's breath, and she takes my breath away. The white color reminds me of her white apron and my thoughts can get carried away and I think her in a white dress." he has a gentle smile on his face as he is describing this all to me.

"What are the things about her that take your breath away?" I ask him.

"The way that she smiles, the way that she puts her all into everything that she does, how she does this cute little happy wiggle when she makes something correctly for the first time. The way that her hair blows in the wind when it is out of her braids, the way that she whispers in my ear when a customer is in a store, and she feels she has to tell me something important."

His hands keep moving the entire time that he is talking, and I am watching his progress while constantly stirring the potion. I'm not sure if it is needed for me to keep stirring it, but I need him to do all of these next parts himself. When he finished talking about how she whispers in his ear I see that the flower is ground up decently for one that wasn't dried.

"Good. Now bring that over here. It was a fresh flower so there should be juice at the bottom. Strain that into the potion and throw out the rest. While pouring the liquid in make sure to say her name" I tell him. He complies with my directions, cheeks a little pink from the way that he was just talking.

"Sadie Marie Casterson." he says. Once he finished pouring in the liquid, he throws out the rest of the flower. "What's next?"

"Next you need to chew up a bit of your favorite food the amount of times as the number of letters in her name. Then spit the food into that bowl over there. After that strain the juices out of it and only put the juices into the potion. Do you happen to have a fork or knife to strain it? Also, please wash that bowl and bring it back to me next time."

"Okay." he says. He pulls out his wrapped sandwich. It has turkey, lettuce, onion, some kind of sauce, maybe some other meat, and tomatoes. I don't ask, just look and see if I can figure it out on my own.

"The sandwich is your favorite food? That's convenient. And somehow I would have thought that it would be a baked good."

"It might have been if I wasn't around them all day, every day, taste testing so many recipes." he says and laughs.

"Before you take your bite I recommend counting out the letters in her name and saying it out loud. Helps keep it in your mind." I recommend to him.

He counts out the letters and they total nineteen, with her middle name included. Seems he actually knows a lot about this girl. The infatuation is strong with this one. I hope that he found this information out in a consensual way.

He pops a bit of food into his mouth, and I decide to count it out for him as he chews. He seems appreciative about this. At nineteen I shout "stop!" to startle him to make sure that he doesn't continue. He stops and spits where I directed him to. He pours in the juices and tosses the rest of the chewed-up food.

"Good job." I tell him and glance at the journal to know what is next. "Next please add a splash of your favorite drink." I tell him and indicate for him to do that now.

"Got my favorite lemonade. Freshly made." he says, sounding a bit proud of himself. Did he go home and fresh make some lemonade? He really wants this to be potent, doesn't he? I'm beginning to hope that maybe talking through everything will remind him of his genuine feelings and maybe see that he doesn't have to go this far to win the heart of his lady love.

He looks at me to see if there was anything that he had to say before adding it.

"Do you have any memories of drinking this lemonade together?" I ask him.

"Actually, she is the one who first introduced me to this drink." he tells me. "She was running really late one day, and she runs in, being careful not to splash the drinks all over herself. It was really cute. It might actually just be some of my fond feelings that make this drinking my favorite."

"That's actually really sweet." I tell him. "Go ahead and add a splash of it." He follows my directions and pours in some of the lemonade.

"Okay, next is the item that reminds you of her." I tell him.

Bobby pulls out a multicolored cupcake from his bag.

"How does this remind you of her? And did you get this from the first place you met?" I ask him.

"This reminds me of Sadie because this is the first recipe that she created on her own. It was partly an accident because she read one of the recipes wrong. She added in a ton of colored sprinkles, instead of sprinkling in a few chocolate chips. I have no idea how she misread it, but I think that makes her cute." he says with a sweet smile on his face.

"And the first place I met her is at the bakery when she stumbled clumsily inside and demanded to be my apprentice, I guess a friend of hers had shared some of the baked goods I made with her, and she got hooked on them. She liked them so much that she decided that she had to learn to make them herself."

"That sounds like an interesting meet cute." I tell him while trying to picture Sadie stumbling into his shop and demanding anything of him. It brings a smile to my face. I hope she tries to boss him around sometimes.

"Go ahead and crumble just a little bit of it into the potion." I tell him and wait for him to do so.

"Does this also represent an activity that the two of you do together?" I ask him. I suppose it would be convenient to have an item representing multiple things.

"I didn't know if that would count so I brought this." he tells me and pulls a small square of dark chocolate out of his sack.

"Why dark chocolate?" I ask him curiously.

"We are trying to create a line of sweets that feature dark chocolate. Lately we have had some people coming in and asking for something that isn't too sweet. This dark chocolate is also only semi-sweet. We have had a success so far in creating a dark chocolate cake, though it is a still a bit richer than we were hoping for. We are still actively working on designing more recipes together so this is a good representation."

"Okay, I suppose that is a good representation." I tell him, nodding and gesturing for him to put a little bit into the potion.

At this point, the potion had a bit of a unique smell. It was still mostly flowers but the sandwich juices and lemonade gave it an unusual smell as well. The uniqueness became enhanced when the chocolate was added.

"You have done a good job of adding memories into the potion alongside of those items. I don't think that you need to put in any of your hair and nails. It takes a while to break them down as well." I honestly have no idea how to break them down. Maybe an acid of some sort? "Let's instead add your tears and blood."

Bobby flinches a bit but nods. I wonder if he had been second guessing this part.

"You know what, forget the tears. Unless you can cry on command or you prick your finger in a way that hurts enough to get you to cry." I tell him.

"Will the potion be strong enough without them?"

"Oh I believe this is going to be plenty strong as it is. Now prick your finger with the needle you brought. We then must let it simmer until it turns a light pink color." I tell him.

Bobby pricks his finger and squeezes some drops of blood into the potion. It causes a ripple in the potion and the color settles into a dark pink color.

"How about you go look around the store a bit while I let this simmer?" I offer.

"Are you sure you don't need me to do anything else?" he asks.

"You have done plenty." I assure him. I stir the potion consistently while watching the color. I thought that it might take hours to turn the correct color, but it doesn't. It turns light pink very quickly. Good, I did have some other things that I wanted to do before returning for the night.

"Bobby, the potion is done." I tell him.

He comes back into the backroom and helps me pour the potion into a medium sized potion bottle. I cap it, grab a tag and label it as Love Potion Number 8.

"Are you sure that it is complete? Even without the hair, nails and tears?"

"I am sure." I tell him and hustle him out of my shop.

As I clean up the potion making area and sit to eat the sandwich and mini cupcake that Bobby had brought me, I see a now familiar screen pop up. It seems my progress has been saved.