A little forward: Author's Note: I was taking a shower when for some reason Molly and Lucy popped into my head. For some reason, I've always seen them as identical twins and this got me to thinking what it would be like to have a twin and what it would be like to be the less noticable one. This story was thus born. Happy reading. ~ Rosy

Molly and Lucy
by Princess Rosamunde

Before they were eleven, Molly and Lucy found it very easy to be twins. After all Mummy and Daddy liked it very much when Molly and Lucy dressed alike and played well together. Molly and Lucy insisted upon wearing the same red jumper with the same black boots. They even insisted upon the same underwear. All the cousins knew that they couldn't just play with Molly or Lucy, they had to play with Molly and Lucy. When Anna pulled Molly's hair, Molly could always rely on Lucy to tell Mummy on her. When Anna pinched Lucy, Lucy could always rely on Molly to tell Mummy on her. No one was ever able to boss Molly around, Lucy wouldn't stand for that. And no one dared push Lucy around, Molly wouldn't allow it. When they were littler, Molly and Lucy had loved to pretend to be each other. They could fool almost any one but their Daddy could always tell them apart. And sometimes they suspected that Mummy just pretended to be fooled. Molly and Lucy were each other's best friend. In fact, they weren't really Molly and Lucy, they were Mollyandlucy. This kept them from ever being bored or lonely at their Muggle primary school. Being Mollyandlucy; because for some reason they were never Lucyandmolly; was a little harder for Molly than it was for Lucy. Lucy had always been a little braver, and a little bolder. Which meant Molly sometimes found herself doing things that terrified her, like climbing all the way to the top of the giant sycamore that stood next to their house. But Molly didn't mind, really she didn't, because after all, she knew that Lucy would never intentionally hurt her. Molly thought that being Lucy's twin sister was who she was. She and Lucy were half of one person, she thought. Lucy represented the more daring and adventurous half of them. She was the one that people gravitated towards. Molly herself was the quieter and calmer half of them. She pointed out the flaws in Lucy's half-thought out plans, and complemented the reason to her sister's action. But not being Mollyandlucy was also much, much harder for Molly than it was for Lucy.

When the twins turned eleven; sharing the same birthday meant less presents for Molly and Lucy than for Anna, because they were expected to share more; they went to Hogwarts. At Hogwarts, the twins began to be less twinnish. Some of it was the teachers. Although Molly and Lucy had been both Sorted into Gryffindor, and shared a dorm, which Molly thanked Merlin for, every single one of their professors insisted on separating them. It was all very well and good for them to sit together when they took notes, but for practical magic they were always separated. "Unfair advantage," the teachers would say when a wailing Molly and a complaining Lucy approached them about it. Lucy took it in stride, striving to prove that she could indeed succeed on her own. Molly lagged behind, wishing things didn't have to change. But Molly really didn't notice things changing between her and Lucy until a few years later.
Molly and Lucy sat on the floor beside each other in the Gryffindor Common Room writing their Charms essays.
Lucy put her pen down; thanks to pushing from Muggle-borns like Molly and Lucy's mother and their Aunt Hermione, Hogwarts (and Wizarding Britain at large) permitted the usage of pens and pencils in addition to quills. "Emily said there's a party in one of the empty classrooms down on the sixth floor."
Molly had no idea who Emily was and she didn't care. She also did not want to go. "I don't think I'll go." She said softly, knowing that if she really didn't want to go, Lucy wouldn't go either. Lucy didn't answer. Molly peeked at Lucy from behind her hair, as she scribbled, noticing that Lucy's fist was clenched tightly around her pen.
"I want to go." Lucy said, finally. Her tone was harsher and meaner that it had ever been while addressing Molly.
"Okay." Molly frowned, slightly hurt. "I still don't want to."
"Fine." Lucy said, her voice rising in pitch as well as volume. "Fine." Molly knew that Lucy was mad at her - which never, ever, ever happened - but she knew Lucy would stay with her.
Lucy grabbed her pen and sheets of parchment, her Charms textbook, and her notes, and crammed them angrily into her shoulder bag. She stood up and looked at Molly. "I'm going. Alone if I have to." Then she walked away from Molly and stormed out of the Common Room.
Molly was stunned. Had Lucy really walked out on her? Lucy was mad at her! Lucy was never, ever, ever mad at her. Did Lucy no longer want to be Mollyandlucy anymore? Did she want to stop being twins?
Molly couldn't work with Lucy mad at her. She threw her things together, just as Lucy had, and ran upstairs to her dormitory. It was still relatively early in the evening, so no one saw as Molly buried her face in her bed and cried and cried. The crying made her feel a little better and clearer headed, and so she sat up and rubbed her eyes.
She was fourteen years old. Had she really thought that she and Lucy would be together forever, for everything? Yes, she realized. Yes, she had. When abstract things like crushes and boys, and someday getting a job and being married, and having children had crossed her mind, she'd never realized that those things would take her away from Lucy. They'd always been Mollyandlucy, and they'd always be Mollyandlucy, or so she had thought.
We're fourteen, she thought, it's only natural that she wants other friends. But that didn't make it hurt less.
All of our friends are really Lucy's friends, she realized. They don't really know me at all because I've let Lucy make friends for me and talk for the both of us. Molly resolved that from this day on, she'd be her own person. She and Lucy would never be Mollyandlucy again, instead they'd be Molly and Lucy.
That day marked the first chapter in Molly Antonia Weasley's new life. Yes, she was still Lucy's twin sister, still the shyer, quieter one, but never again would she let herself miss out on life because she wasn't Lucy. People began to know her for the funny jokes she told and her slightly motherly attitude. Molly delighted in hearing herself described as the funny twin. When her cousins James and Fred teased her, calling her Mama Molly, and saying she would have seven children just like Grandmum Weasley, she groaned and begged them to stop. But secretly she loved it. No one ever came to Lucy for advice. She was too much of a gossip.
After all, who says twins have to be the same anyway?