The door swung upon, letting in a gust of icy air. Dad stomped his boots as he came in, unwrapping his muffler to reveal a red face and fogged spectacles. Mum flicked the door shut behind him, then stepped forward to plant a kiss on his cheek. "Welcome home, honeybear. How was your day?"

Dad sighed, hanging his coat on the already laden hooks by the door and carefully stacking his boots before stepping towards the table to return Mum's kiss. "Oh, you know. Stubbins managed to banish his toenails again and Malfoy's been going on about that new regulation on primary schools he wants to push through."

Ron scowled at Malfoy's name. Dad was always complaining about the Malfoys, and the one time Ron had met them they'd been rude. Especially Mrs. Malfoy. "They're not better than us," he said loyally from his seat at the kitchen table.

"Yeah," Ginny echoed.

Dad smiled, reaching over to rub Ron's hat-covered head. "That's my girls," he said. He pulled a newspaper out of his back pocket and dropped it on the table before taking a seat. "Could you by chance get me a cup of tea, Molly?"

Ginny leaned over the table to pull the paper over. "Can I practice reading this instead, Mum?"

Mum nodded distractedly, directing a steaming mug over to Dad as she checked the potato stew on the stove. "Do you think he'll manage to pass the bill?"

Ron stared at his homework, and reached up to itch his head. He only had one question left to answer: What year did the Wizarding War end, and why? That one was easy. It had ended the year after he was born, because Harry Potter killed You-Know-Who. We won in 1981, Ron wrote carefully, because Harry Potter beat You-Know-Who.

"... the Bones' and the Prewitts will vote against mandatory homeschooling, of course, I just wish they would encourage more half-bloods and muggle-borns to vote. It'll skew the results if they only reach out to the pure-blood families..."

"Ron." Ginny poked him. "What's this word?"

Ron pushed his paper out of the way, leaning over to peer at the column Ginny was trying to read. "In..." he said experimentally. "In-sti... Gate. In-sti-gate." He frowned.

"- all nonsense, of course, in fact a bit of muggle education would probably do everyone some good -"

"Mum," Ron interrupted. "What does instigate mean?"

"It means to start something," Mum said. "Like if you were to pick a fight with your brothers."

Ginny went back to struggling through the words, and Ron pulled over a loose piece to doodle on the pictures. He drew a ball in between two wizards who were shaking hands, and gave it a mean face. The wizards kept shaking hands, but carefully leaned back as Ron made the ball slightly bigger.

Fred bounced into the room, followed closely by George. "Dad, you're home! Did you find anything cool at the Ministry today?"

"Any more bouncing eggs?" George asked hopefully.

"Nothing today, boys," Dad said with a smile.

"What's con - conif - coning -"

Mum leaned backwards to see the word Ginny was struggling with. "Conniving," she said. "Like your brothers, when they're planning to prank you."

Ginny immediately narrowed her eyes at Ron, who stared at her blankly for a minute. Why was she looking at him, he hadn't pranked her in ages - and then suddenly he was too flustered to glare back, reaching up instead to tug at his hat.

"We're not conniving," George said. "Slytherins are conniving."

"Yeah, we're crafty."

"Clever."

"Creative -"

"What's mud-blood?" Ginny asked, and Dad choked on his tea.

"Ginny!" Mum admonished, snatching up the newspaper along with the page Ron had been doodling on. Ron stared, startled, and as soon as Mum had turned back Fred started inching towards the cupboard where she had stashed the paper. "That's a very bad word, we don't use that word here."

Ginny's lip trembled, and Dad reached out over to pluck her out of her seat and into his lap. "It's a nasty name for muggle-borns, poppet," he said, rubbing her arm with one hand while the other waved his wand at his spilled tea. Mum refilled his cup, and gathered up Ron and Ginny's school work from the table. "For people who don't have wizards in their families."

"But you can't be a wizard if you're a muggle," Ron said, confused. There were muggles in Ottery-St-Catchpole, he'd met them, and none of them were magic.

"Sometimes muggles are born with magic," Dad said. "Just like sometimes wizards are born as Squibs."

"Like Uncle Ector," George said. "He's a muggle."

"Squib," Fred corrected.

"But w-why is - why is -" Ginny paused, struggling, and Dad gave her another pat. "People like the Malfoys use the m-word as an insult to muggle-borns," Dad said. "It's very offensive."

"If it's so bad, why's it in the paper?" Ron asked. Fred made a grab for the page in question, but Mum summoned it away before he could get it. "Go sit down," she scolded him. "Dinner's almost ready."

"Sometimes the paper says things which aren't nice," Dad said vaguely. Ron frowned, but Ginny interrupted before he could ask why again. "But why don't muggle-borns like it?" she insisted.

"It makes them unwelcome," Dad said. "When you call people nasty things, it makes it seem like you're better than them even if you're not. How would you feel, if Ronny called you a hag all the time?" Ginny wrinkled her nose. "It's not nice to call people names. Muggle-borns aren't any worse than your average wizard, so you should treat them with the same kindness and respect as you would anyone else."

"Oh," Ginny said, frowning in thought. She glanced at Ron, quick, then away.

"So people like Malfoy are rude," Ron said, and added that to the long list of reasons that he didn't want to end up in Slytherin.

Dad sighed, shifting Ginny back into her seat as Mum directed bowls of soup to everyone at the table. "Unfortunately, there will always be cruel people in the world," he said. "That's why it is important to always be nice, so that you can balance out the hate in the world with kindness."

Ron's head was starting to itch. It was a dry kind of itch, one he could satisfy by discreetly rubbing his head when no one was looking. He hadn't taken his hat off in three weeks, which also meant he hadn't washed his hair in three weeks. But he also hadn't seen his hair in three weeks, and that was the entire point of the hat.

Mum thought otherwise. "You have to take a bath, Ronny," she sighed. "You can't wash your hair with that hat on."

"It's keeping my head warm," Ron argued. "I don't need to wash my hair." It was all tucked under his hat: his hat was keeping off the dirt: ergo, his hair wasn't dirty.

It was very itchy, though, and maybe that was starting to be a problem. Every time Mum turned her back Ron would reach up to scratch his head, and sometimes the creepy-crawly-awfulness would wake him up in the middle of the night (he didn't even take his hat off to sleep).

Three weeks of this, and Mum cornered him as he was preparing for bed. "Veronica Beatrice Weasley," she started, and Ron felt his shoulders creep up to his ears even as his face morphed into a defensive scowl. "Don't think I haven't seen you scratching your head. Your hair's going to fall out if you don't take care of it!"

I hope it does, Ron thought fiercely. "It's not dirty!"

"I'll have to magic you clean if you won't wash it yourself," Mum warned, and Ron's scowl deepened.

"I'm not itching it, it's fine, it's not dirty -"

That night, Ron went to bed with pink skin and hair so clean it felt like tender feathers.

Ron's ninth birthday dawned bright and early on the first day of March, 1989. It was a rare sunny day, the smell of melted snow rising into the air as the sun broke the horizon and shone on the frozen ground. In the highest room on the top floor of the Burrow, Ron blinked himself awake as his dream slipped from immediately from his memory and left him only with a feeling of content.

This was almost instantly replaced with a rush of excitement. Ron leapt from his bed, haphazardly adjusting his hat from where it had slipped while he slept, and rushed to his door. Then it was out onto the landing, skipping and sliding down the stairs and he burst into the kitchen where Mum was already making breakfast and shouted "It's my birthday!"

"Happy birthday, love," Mum said, bustling over to sweep him into a tight hug and plant a firm kiss on his hat-covered head. Ron wriggled out her arms, and hopped over to the table where there was a small pile of wrapped presents at his seat. "Do you feel older than you did yesterday?"

"Yeah, I've only got two more years until I get my letter for Hogwarts," Ron said, then asked "Mum, can I open one now please?"

"You have to wait until after breakfast," Mum lectured, like she did every year. Ron climbed onto his seat anyway and poked at the nearest package. It was soft, the paper crinkling under his finger. "What's for breakfast?" he asked.

"French toast with jam," was the answer, and Ron was about to ask if he could have some now when Dad came into the kitchen, already wearing his work robes and a scarf. He paused in the doorway, then turned to Mum and said "Molly, dear, what's the day? I'm afraid I've forgotten something, but I can't remember what."

"Dad!" Ron exclaimed. "It's my birthday!"

"There was something that happened today, was it nine years ago? I can't remember."

"Dad!" Ron jumped off his chair and ran over to tug on Dad's robes. He knew he was pretending, he knew Dad was just being silly, but suddenly Ron had to be sure.

At Ron's touch Dad looked down, his eyebrows rising in feigned confusion. "My, you're so big. Are you Fred? Are you George?"

"I'm Ron!"

"Ron!" Dad exclaimed, and lifted Ron into the air. "No, it can't be. My little Ronny is still just a little girl."

"Not a girl, I'm a boy! And it's my birthday!"

For an instant, for a moment so small Ron thought he might have imagined it, Dad's eye's lost their sparkle and something that looked strangely, incredibly like grief flashed across his face. But then his eyes were twinkling again and his face was softening and he said "Is that right? Is it really your birthday today? Because you know what that means," and here he set Ron back on the ground, pulling his wand from his pocket and conjuring a crown of orange magic: "You can be anything you want on your birthday." Dad placed the crown over top of Ron's hat and darted in to give him a kiss before Ron could pull away. "Happy birthday, birthday boy."

Ron felt as though fireworks of happiness were exploding in his stomach, radiating out through his chest and his arms. He felt warm, and free, and magic. He laughed. "Mum!" Ron cried, turning to where she was watching from the stove. "Did you hear, you have to do it too. I'm a boy, and it's my birthday!"

"Happy birthday, birthday boy," Mum said, and it didn't matter that her smile wasn't real anymore or that she didn't sound happy about it: Ron was happy enough for them both. He bolted past Dad and up the stairs to wake his brothers.

"Fred, George," Ron burst into their room. "Wake up, it's my birthday and you have to call me a boy now!"

The lump of blankets on Fred's bed let out a groan, and when George sat up his hair stuck straight in the air. "What?" he said groggily. He blinked. "But you're not, your name's Veronica."

Ron scowled. "No, it's not. And it's my birthday, you have to do what I say today."

"So what're we gonna call you," the lump on the other side of the room mumbled. "Victor?"

Ron scowled. "My name's Ron!"

"Vincent," George said, and now he was grinning. "Vernon."

"Wait, wait," Fred's voice came again, and then he was sitting up, his hair bent in a mirror image of George's. His own grin was devilish. "Vladimir!"

George cackled, and Ron gave them his fiercest scowl before marching out of their room and back downstairs to wake Ginny.

Dad was already gone when Ron returned to the kitchen, and Mum had set five plates at the table and was just piling the first of the toast onto Ron's plate. The presents had been moved to the middle of the table, where Ron could still admire them but they wouldn't get sticky from spilled butter and jam.

"Everyone's up, can I open a present now?" Ron asked, even though he already knew the answer. Sure enough, Mum gave him a stern look. "You know the rules, Ronny - Ron: eat your breakfast first and then you can open your presents."

Ginny ran into the kitchen and straight to her chair, climbing up and standing on it so that she could pull the jam closer. "Did you see mine?" she asked Ron excitedly, then without waiting for a response turned to Mum and held out the jar with both hands. "Mum! Help, I can't open it."

Mum tapped the jar with her wand. "Try again, love, and don't stand on your chair."

Ginny sat, and the lid of the jar came off with a pop. "Mine's the green one. Mum, can Ron open my present first?"

"That's up to Ron, I think," Mum said. "Fred!" she called. "George! Come get your breakfast!"

Breakfast was over in record time, and then finally Ron was allowed to open his presents. He graciously picked Ginny's first (it was the soft one, the one he had poked earlier) and opened it to find a lumpy knitted scarf. It was woven in a bright orange of at least three different colors and yarns, and all the stitches were different sizes, but Ron wrapped it immediately around his neck anyway and reached for the next, a medium-sized lumpy one that George claimed was from him and Fred.

This turned out to be an old set of quidditch robes, ones which Ron recognized as Dad's old pair from when he was in school. From Charlie he got a small figurine of Bernie Smith, the Keeper for the Chudley Cannons, and the most recent edition of the Fantastic Flyers periodical. Bill and Percy had gone in together to get him a new chess board to go with Bill's old chess pieces, Dad had gotten him a bag of candy from Honeydukes, and Mum had given him a whole box of treacle fudge.

"Now outside!" Mum said, bringing all their plates to the sink with a wave of her wand. "No school work today. Be out of my hair for half an hour, and I'll take you all up to the orchard for some flying."

Ginny cheered, jumping out of her seat and disappearing into her room to change clothes. Ron gathered everything except the fudge and the candy into his arms and staggered out of the kitchen, Fred and George trailing up the stairs after him. In his head, Ron excitedly planned out the rest of his day. He could wear his new robes while they played quidditch this morning, and maybe look at the magazine Charlie had sent before lunch. He would have to make Ginny play chess with him tonight - the twins were both rubbish at chess anyway. (Maybe he would even share his candy with her, if he was feeling generous.) And there would be cake after lunch, and corned beef with mashed potatoes for dinner, and he was allowed to be himself all day and no one was allowed to complain about it or say that it was wrong.

"We'll have to make teams," he heard Fred say to George as they split off into their own room at the second floor landing. "Ginny and me will be on one team, and you and Vladimir can be on the other."

Ginny was seven and a half years old. She was the littlest Weasley, the youngest and the greenest and one who would make it to Hogwarts last. But, Ginny was also the smartest. She knew how to think and watch and learn so that when her older brothers did something couldn't, she could figure out how to do it too. She couldn't help that they were all older than her, but that didn't mean that they were any better than she was.

Because Ginny watched, she saw a lot of things. She didn't understand most of what she saw, but that was okay: the world was wide and wonderful, and most of the time it didn't matter if something made sense so long as it was real. Magic was real, muggles were real, and whether or not you were a girl or a boy was real too.

Ginny hadn't used to understand this. The thing about being the youngest, though: you must never admit that you don't understand. So, whenever Ginny's Train of Thought hit a snag in the rails, she set to work to fix it. Sometimes it took a while, but in the end Ginny always made sure she understood everything. And now, after nearly seven months, she knew for sure: girls and boys were different. Sometimes it didn't matter what Mum and Dad said: Ginny knew she was a girl, and Ron knew she was a boy, and grown-ups weren't right all the time.

So here was another thing that Ginny had been thinking about: Mud-blood was a nasty word. She hadn't understood at first, and Mum and Dad had been angry, but it had been nearly a week and Ginny had considered it and she thought she might understand it now: calling people things they didn't want to be called made them feel bad. And it was important to always be kind.

"Daddy," she said, as he helped her gather her stuffed animals in preparation for bed. "I need to give Ron another present."

"Okay, sweety. Be quick, though - it's bedtime."

"I'll be quick," Ginny promised, and ran out her door and up the stairs, bringing Dragomoranda with her.

Ron was belly down on the carpet in her room, setting up her new chess set. No, that wasn't right, Ginny reminded herself. It was his room, and his chess set. Ron looked up when she came in, and she halted belatedly before hopping back a step, knocking on the door, and jumping right back into the room.

"I have another birthday present," Ginny announced, and it didn't occur to her to think that it might be complicated.

Ron perked up, his eyes darting around her. "Where?"

"No not a thing," Ginny said. She hopped from one foot to the other, and clutched Dragomoranda in front of her. "I'm making you my brother, for real!"

Ron stared at her, and Ginny scowled. Sometimes it seemed like Ron was stupid, even though he was older than she was. "It's like with the muggles," Ginny clarified. "Daddy said it's important to be kind. And I think this counts."

"So not just for today," Ron said, and Ginny nodded, feeling a goofy grin spread across her face to match the hopeful one creeping across Ron's own. "You can be my brother forever now," she confirmed. "And I'll get to be the first girl Weasley born in seven generations."