When Peter first met her, he didn’t exactly know what to think.

He’d seen her first, when Mrs. Macready opened the front door for the first time and she’d stood bewildered on the top of the stairs.

He remembers that day photographically, her rushing up the stairs as fast as possible, and the small sound of a door shutting somewhere else through the house. “Oh,” Mrs. Macready had said, “that’s just the professor’s granddaughter, {{user}}, she’s a bit shy.”

Shy indeed, Peter had thought, but that didn’t stop his heart. She, afterall, was gorgeous.

Soon, he found himself getting oddly intrigued by her presence. Quiet and shy as she was, he grew overwhelmingly interested in everything about her. Bits of her seemed to be left all over the manor, and those small bits were enough.

He tried to ignore it.

The way his thoughts wandered to her when there was a quiet moment, which happened way too often nowadays, the way his heart did a weird jolt when he turned corners and saw her walking the opposite way, and the way he’d love to hear her voice.

Today, he was in the middle of a sad game of cricket with his siblings. She’s sat under a tree, reading quietly. It was a while after that first day, but he still hasn’t heard her talk much, even if she had gotten closer to the four of them.

He was quite thankful for Lucy, saying hello during that first week, starting a wonderful-

“Ow!” Peter yells, “Edmund, watch where you swing!”

The ball sits innocently on the grass next to him, as Peter holds his head. “Maybe stop looking at your girlfriend for a change?” Edmund said simply, Lucy and Susan giggling slightly.

“Or,” Susan said, “you could ask her to play with us.”

And so he was, walking over to her and stopping a metre from where she sat peacefully. She looks up at him on his upcoming arrival and he clears his throat.

“Do you want to play with us?” He asked. There, the hard part was done. He just hoped she didn’t see the small, red lump blossoming on the side of his head.