A/N: This moment really struck me during my last reread of LWW, and I felt the need to get inside Peter's head. This falls after Damascus Road and before Reasonable Expectation, and is very much bookverse. Characters and settings obviously not mine.
Made He Thee King
"…therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice."
~ 1 Kings 10:9
Peter stood with his back to the camp while Aslan spoke with the Witch. Susan comforted Lucy which was a good thing. Lucy, for all the size of her heart was such a little girl in this new world, and Susan was better at comfort than Peter was. Before Peter had turned away, Edmund had still had his eyes fixed in the direction Aslan had gone. No wonder that; it was his fate that was being decided.
All shall be done that may be done, but it may be more difficult than you imagine.
Taller than Dad and blindingly beautiful, the Witch nevertheless repulsed Peter. Knowing what she'd done, what she wanted to do to Edmund, and seeing her beside the golden radiance of Aslan, it was easy to resist her allure. Alone, in the snow, had his brother had a chance?
Edmund hadn't been alone with the Witch when he called Lucy a liar or tried to stop them from following the Robin or left the Beavers' dam. But that was over. Peter had heard - had dragged - many an apology out of his brother in the past, but he couldn't remember Edmund ever looking so genuinely contrite or so transparently fearful of rejection as he had that morning.
Oh, he'd had reason for regret, but he'd looked, then, more afraid of being denied Peter's forgiveness than he seemed to be now of the Witch (And he was afraid. His shoulder had trembled under Peter's hand when the Witch approached.).
And the girls had looked so pleading, and Aslan had been so warm and strong and understanding, and it was the little brother who used to skin his knees trying to climb a tree or score a run. Susan would bandage his wounds, and Lucy would cheer him up, but it was Peter who taught him how to do better next time - or had until he'd stopped wanting to learn. How could he do anything else now?
Forgiving Edmund had been easy.
Try and take him! The bull-man had taken the words before Peter could speak them, but the Witch had dismissed them. He'd been as ready to dismiss her claims about Deep Magic until Aslan had confirmed them.
Aslan, Peter remembered then, had not promised to save Edmund. He'd only promised to try, and while Peter Pevensie would stake his life on Aslan's try (no matter how short the time since he met the Great Lion), staking Edmund's was more frightening. Aslan would do the right thing, but if the right thing meant letting Edmund pay the price of his mistakes in order to save Narnia, Peter doubted hIs own ability to do it. What kind of brother would that make him? But dooming Narnia (every stone and branch and Beast and faun, already his to protect as much as his kin) to save a traitor, even a penitent traitor, ought to disqualify him from the crown Aslan had promised.
Harder than you imagine. Was this what Aslan had meant?
Peter couldn't face his brother, nor could he face the earnest, trusting Narnians, so he looked up and out, at the hill of the Stone Table from which Aslan had shown him (awed and excited and a little fearful) his destiny.
Was it wrong to be grateful that he was not king, yet? That this was Aslan's decision rather than his to make?
When Aslan returned bearing the best of tidings - "She has renounced her claim" - Peter's only thought besides gratified relief was that the next decision would be his.