Author's Note: This is going to be an ongoing project. I'll update... uh, whenever I remember. This chapter should probably be rated somewhere between T and M, but I've rated it T for the later chapters. However, this chapter is probably more... um... suggestive than the others. Let me know if I should change the rating!

Reviews are love, people. :D

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Chapter One

In Which Charmain Makes an Embarrassing Discovery

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"PE-TER!" shrieked Charmain into the hallway.

Peter winced. He had been blamelessly flipping through Res Magica (Volume 28: Cosmic Oneiromancy), and when Charmain had that particular sound in her voice, it meant that the two of them were in for a huge fight.

Honestly, he wasn't sure that he minded. He rather enjoyed his quarrels with her, much like a dog enjoys a game of tug-of-war. He reminded himself to play a game with Waif when she'd had her puppies. He recalled that he had to go to the castle tomorrow – when living there permanently had proved to be too difficult, the King and Wizard Norland had held a conference and decided that he should live with Wizard Norland and go to the castle every weekday for 'prince training'.

He turned back to his book.

"PE-TER!" came again, followed by, "If you don't get in here right now, I will personally tear your guts out and tie them in a bow around your head!"

He sighed and put Cosmic Oneiromancy down. "I'm COMING, Charmain!"

"Hmph!" said Charmain.

He scurried out of the study, looked at his hands – green for left, that's right – and stalked along the corridor, attempting to get himself into the right frame of mind for one of their verbal spurs.

Charmain was standing in the third bedroom along, gripping some sort of scroll tightly.

"What are you doing in-?" started Peter, but Charmain was quicker – and louder.

"What is this filth?" she screeched, shoving the scroll at him. "And why was it under my mattress?"

Peter unrolled it. It wasn't a scroll; it was the Sexy Sorceresses magazine that one of his Montalbino friends had bought for him. 'If you're going to be an apprentice wizard,' James had written in the accompanying letter, 'you'd better have something to amuse you!'

The front cover was of a young, fair-haired woman, one hand holding a spell book in front of her breasts, which were too large to be completely covered. Her stomach was bare, and her other hand was undoing the string of her drawers. The cover had 'Hot or Not? Strangia's Wildest Witches!' emblazoned across the bottom, and 'Summertime Special: Enchanting Enchantresses!' splashed across the side. Realising what Charmain must be thinking, Peter flushed a deep, dark red.

It took Peter about ten seconds to take in the cover, look at Charmain scowling at him, and realise he had to come up with an answer. "It's not mine," he finally said.

Charmain, wordlessly, flicked open the front cover (revealing an advert for 'foolproof contraceptive spells') and pointed at his name, written neatly in the top corner.

Peter muttered a curse word.

"Wash your mouth out with soap!" spat Charmain.

"Look, it really isn't mine!" he insisted. "Well, it is, but I… I don't use it or anything. I mean, um, read it."

Charmain looked at him, leaned over, and flipped the pages to somewhere in the middle, where there was a bookmark – and, embarrassingly, a suspicious stain on the page.

Peter's stomach flipped over.

Charmain pushed up her glasses and glared at him.

"It really isn't what it looks like," he said. "It's just tea. I knocked it onto the page."

He neglected to mention what he had been doing when he'd knocked over the tea.

He looked down at the page again. Honestly, she was the most beautiful Enchanting Enchantress in the book. She was slender and small-breasted, with loose, long red hair and green eyes. Unlike the other women in the magazine, she didn't have her chest thrust out and head thrown back. Instead, she stood with her hands crossed over her breasts, with a small smile on her face like she knew something he didn't. She was even wearing a petticoat, albeit one that clung to her legs rather suggestively.

He fancied that she looked a little like Charmain.

He decided to try a different tack, as the 'it's-not-mine' defence had not worked out very well. He threw the magazine down on his bed.

"Well, what were you doing in my room, anyway? You know perfectly well you're not meant to be in here. I don't go into your room, you don't go into mine, and it's as simple as that."

(Admittedly, he had been in her room once without her permission, while she was helping the King in the library. It wasn't snooping, he had told himself firmly, it was searching. He'd been looking for Memoirs of an Exorcist. He knew it was probably in the study, but he decided he had better look in Charmain's room first, as she liked books and had possibly taken it to her room. Admittedly, he knew it most likely wasn't in the drawer with her undergarments in it, but how was he to know that's where she stored them? He had, however, definitely been embarrassed when he had worked out what the drawer marked Charmain's Things!!! Do Not Open!!! contained, but he reasoned that such a name was sure to inspire curiosity.

Fortunately, he actually did find Memoirs of an Exorcist on her bedside table, under The Twelve-Branched Wand and on top of a secret stash of sweets. He had quickly taken it and walked to his own room.)

Charmain glared at him. "This is my room! Just look at it!"

Peter glowered at her and flung open the cupboard door. There, hanging neatly, was his green tweed suit, along with a pair of shoes and a rather fluffy cough-drop that had fallen out of his pocket. "Not to mention," he said huffily, "that your room is at least twice this messy."

Charmain looked lost for words. "Well, it looks like my room," she said unhelpfully.

Peter exploded. "Of course it bloody looks like your room! All the rooms in this corridor – and I think there are at least a hundred – look the same! What gets me is that how you didn't know this wasn't your room!" He felt privately smug. He was on a roll with this argument. "It's not got any of your things in it, and it has lots of mine! Didn't you see my bed? It has my pyjamas on it!" This was true. His bed was messily made, and his stripy pyjama leg was hanging down the side, looking rather forlorn. "And – and this!" He picked up an old sock lying on the floor. "It's not like any of your socks, I should think!"

Charmain was going redder and redder.

"And this book!" he yelled, picking up Memoirs of an Exorcist and waving it about. "It's not in your room, it's in mine!"

Peter continued, "Anyway, why would I be such a fool as to put a magazine like that under your mattress? I'm not a complete idiot, you know."

Oops. He'd just about admitted that the magazine belonged to him.

"You're not? Oh, that's news to me," spat Charmain, only seeming to hear the last sentence. "You're the biggest idiot I've ever met, that's for certain." She scowled up into his face – he was taller than she was now, though not by much. "Anyway, fine, I didn't actually think this was my room. I was snooping. Happy now?"

"Oh, like I hadn't already figured that out," Peter said sarcastically. He hadn't, actually; he knew that Charmain could be absent-minded sometimes, and he'd put it down to that.

Something tugged at his memory. "How did you know my name and my bookmark were in that magazine?"

Charmain blushed even darker, if that were possible. "I – was curious," she finally admitted. "I had a look through it." It seemed like her anger had disappeared in the face of her embarrassment. "They're very pretty. Although I don't understand why you marked that red-haired girl. She's not as…" she stopped, and thought for a second, "…as voluptuous as the others." She put her hand over her eyes. "I cannot believe we are having this conversation," she whispered.

"Neither can I," Peter confessed. "Anyway, where did you find out that boys like that sort of thing, Miss Respectability?" I don't like curves so much, he thought. I prefer tall and slim, with red hair and greenish eyes and a funny crooked smile that makes my heart go all thumpy… He noticed Charmain was talking, and he tried to focus on what she was saying.

"…of course my school was completely respectable," she said, rolling her eyes, "but you would not believe the unrespectable things that the girls talked about." She giggled suddenly. "Lots of them have older brothers and sisters, see, and when they were at home they would listen to their brothers and sisters talking to their friends. 'Course, I couldn't, but I listened to the other girl's accounts like anything."

"And that's how you found out?" asked Peter.

"Lots of other things too." Charmain smiled slightly. "If my mother had known, she'd have taken me out of there immediately and sent me to a finishing school in Ingary. Although I doubt the girls there would have been any better."

Peter grinned. "The boys at my school were much the same," he admitted. "Although I suppose more of our education was from magazines, and from older brothers actually telling them things."

Charmain nodded. "Although I did find some things in books," she said. "There was a section in the library, although I don't think that they were really meant to be there." Her mouth twitched, as though she was trying not to laugh. "They all had different covers to what was inside. Some of them were a lot like that – what was it, Wild Witches?"

"Sexy Sorceresses," corrected Peter.

"Yes, that. Well, the pictures inside were like that, but of men." Her lips twitched again. "You don't really look like that, do you? I mean, when you were all wet from the rain that day you first got here, your shirt was a bit clingy, but of course I could only see your chest a bit and nothing else-" She fell silent very suddenly and her cheeks went scarlet.

Peter flushed too. Trying to think of something to say, he reached over to Sexy Sorceresses and flicked it open to the red-haired girl.

"No more than you look like she does," he said half-jokingly.

Charmain stared at the picture, lips shaking slightly. Quite suddenly, she burst into tears and ran towards the door.

"What's the use?" Peter heard her wailing from her bedroom.

He sat there feeling like he ought to get up and do something, but he didn't move until he heard her sobbing that she would "never, ever be like that, not in a million years!"

He walked awkwardly to her room, still holding the magazine. Charmain was lying across her bed, crying into her pillow.

He patted her shoulder uncomfortably. "Charmain, what's wrong?"

"Oh, go away!" she moaned. "Can't you see I want to be alone?"

"I'm not going away 'til you tell me what the matter is," Peter said stubbornly. He had heard that this was the best way to deal with female tantrums, and he wanted to try it out.

"NO!" shouted Charmain, half muffled by the pillow.

He sat down next to her, quite calmly, and set the magazine next to him. "Look, I just want to know why you got so upset so suddenly, when you were laughing just a minute before."

She sat up and looked at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her face was bright red with crying. "Oh, I don't know!" she finally said. "I just – I just wish I looked more like that girl in the magazine." She sniffled loudly. "But it's useless. I'll never be pretty."

"But you're…" Peter began, then stopped and started again. "You're not precisely hideous."

Charmain pushed him, quite hard. "Oh, it's just like you to say that, you beast!"

"But that's not a mean thing to say! I just said you aren't ugly!"

She brought her long legs up and hugged them. "Yes, it is mean!" A single tear slipped out of her eye and down her cheek. "You're meant to say, "But you are pre–" She stopped and blinked, quite viciously.

Peter half pulled her into his lap. "Oh, Charmain," he said quietly. "It's all right."

She stopped trying to hold back tears. She cried into his shoulder, occasionally whispering fragments of sentences. "It's not fair," mostly.

All the while, Peter embraced her, his chin resting on her head, and occasionally saying things like, "It's all right, Charmain, please stop crying."

Eventually she sat up, wiped her eyes, sniffled wetly and said, "I'm all right now." She replaced her glasses on her nose, as they were dangling precariously from one ear.

Peter let go of her quickly. They scuttled to opposite ends of the bed, almost simultaneously. He would have laughed, if he was in a laughing mood.

Charmain hugged her legs again. "It's just, all my life, nobody's ever really liked me. I'm not pretty, I'm not kind, I'm just… clever. I don't even think my own parents like me that much." She sighed. "And it hurts. It really does."

Peter reached over and touched the tips of her fingers with his. "I like you," he said softly. "I suppose you aren't exactly kind, but you are nice." And pretty, he added in his head. "And lots of other people like you too," he continued hurriedly. "The Wizard Norland, for one. And the Wizard Pendragon and his wife Sophie, and the King and the Princess Hilda. I even think my mother rather likes you, in her way."

"Thanks," Charmain said. She squeezed his hand. "I feel better now."

Peter nodded. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Me too."

They sat there for a while, each busy with their own thoughts, when Charmain turned to him.

"Memoirs of an Exorcist was in my room, I'm sure of it. It was under The Twelve-Branched Wand, I think. But it's in your room now." She frowned slightly.

Peter looked away. "Yes," he admitted, "I did snoop in your room once. Just once, though. And I was looking for it. It wasn't my fault that you don't mark your drawers with their contents. I'd never had looked if you had."

Charmain pointed an accusing finger at him. "I thought somebody had been rifling through my undergarments!"

Peter snorted. "I don't know how you worked that out, it was in so much of a mess that you wouldn't have known if I'd taken half your petticoats out. And that other drawer–!" He abruptly broke off.

Charmain raised her eyebrows. "The one with 'Do Not Open' written on it?"

"I was curious!" said Peter defensively.

She folded her arms crossly. "That sign was there for a reason."

He pouted slightly. "Well, I know that now, but I thought it was just sweets or something before I opened it." He turned pink. "Anyway, I don't see why you don't put things like that in the bathroom. It must be easier."

She scowled. "Because anybody can look in the bathroom cupboard. Nobody's meant to look in my room." She sniffed. "Besides, you probably don't want to know about things like that. Female things," she added primly.

"No-o, I suppose I don't," he admitted. "Still, when you live on your own with a very forthright witch for your whole life, you get used to it."

"True," she mused. "I didn't know anything until I – you know," she said, embarrassed.

Peter looked at her.

"Reached womanhood," she said with a sigh. "And the worst thing was, I had no idea what was happening! It didn't say anything like it in those library books. Mother just smiled and gave me a pile of those cloth pads and told me to put one in my drawers. I had to ask Laetitia from school when I got there."

"Oh." He stared at her. "You really are direct, aren't you?"

"Only with some people."

And with that, she stood up, pulled Peter off the bed, and hugged him tightly. "Thanks," she whispered in his ear. "Thanks for being such a good friend."

He hugged her back. "That's not a problem," he said awkwardly.

Charmain let him go quite suddenly. "But that's not actually what I wanted to ask you."

Peter blinked. "You mean, you didn't want to know if I'd been nosing around in your room?"

She shook her head. "No. What I really wanted to know is if…"

Charmain leaned forward.
"…if…"

He could see himself reflected in her yellow-green eyes.

"…if…"

He could smell her scent, old book smell, and rosewater and nutmeg and almonds from the pastries she was always eating, and soap and her hair-wash potion from her bath that morning, and a touch of that rain-scent from when you did magic…

Peter leaned back, half-afraid.

Charmain did as well, and turned her head away.

"…if I could have Memoirs of an Exorcist back?"

"Oh," said Peter, half-disappointed. "Yes, of course."

He started to walk to the door, but a cough from Charmain stopped him. He turned around, to see a wicked smile on her face.

"You forgot this," she said, holding out Sexy Sorceresses.

He grabbed it, only to see that the pictures had all changed to paintings of dogs – except, oddly enough, the redheaded girl, who was unchanged.

Charmain looked at him innocently.

Peter stared at her.

She smiled sweetly.

"You little witch!" he said, half-laughing, half-angry.

"Yes," she said modestly.

He ruffled her hair affectionately. "Honestly, Charmain, I do not know what to do with you."

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh? I'm sure I can think of something."

And with that, she dodged past him and ran out of the room, shouting, "Last to the kitchen has to do the laundry for the next week!"

He laughed and followed.