Disclaimer: This world and all its characters belong to JK Rowling. I wrote this purely for entertainment purposes, and have no wish to sell, copyright or otherwise claim any of this content.

Ron, eight, lay in his bed, arms crossed and scowling angrily at the ceiling.

"Ron!" Ginny, a year younger than him, pounded her fists on the door. "Mommy says you need to get dressed because we're leaving and she doesn't want to be late!"

"Tell Mum I'm not going!" Ron shouted. If Ginny shouted at him, he was going to shout back.

There was a moment of silence, then Ginny opened the door and stepped into the room, giving him a scowl fierce enough to match his own. Ron sat up abruptly and narrowed his eyes at her. "Get out, Ginny. This is my room."

"You need to get dressed," she repeated.

"I said I wasn't going!"

"Ron –"

"No! Get out of my room!" He jumped to his feet, grabbed her arm and threw her roughly out of his room, slamming the door behind her.

"You're such a pussy!" Ginny yelled. "It's just a dress!"

"Ginny? Ronny?" Their mother's voice drifted up from the kitchen. "What's taking so long? We need to leave."

"Ron says she's not coming!" Ginny called.

Their mother's feet pounded on the stairs, and Ron scrambled back onto his bed, pressing his hands to his ears and squeezing his eyes shut. Maybe if he just pretended hard enough –

His door opened again and then his mother was there, standing before him with the dress he was supposed to wear in one hand and the other reaching out to help him up. "Veronica Weasley, if you don't get dressed right now so help me -"

"NO!" Ron yelled. Maybe it was the fact that this was the second time this week he'd had to where a dress, maybe it was Mum's use of his name-that-wasn't-his-name, or maybe it was just the sight of that ugly, frilly yellow dress that had somehow appeared in his wardrobe, but suddenly Ron felt like he was going to explode. And then he was alone, in his room. His door was shut, there was no sign of Ginny or Mum, and there was a pile of fine ash on the floor that he somehow knew was the dress.

After a minute of stunned silence, Ron rushed to his door, threw it open, and sprinted down the uneven steps two at a time. "Mum!" he yelled, skidding into the kitchen and nearly running headlong into a pale Percy who was trying to comfort a wailing Ginny.

"Mum!" Ron gasped, staring at her where she sat at the table, her head in her hands. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -"

Mum looked up, and Ron was shocked at how tired she looked. "Ronny," she said tiredly, "come here." Ron hurried over, almost tripping over one of the chairs, and buried himself in her open arms.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed, and he realized that he was shaking. "I'm sorry, I didn't – I didn't m-mean to …"

"Mum?" Charlie poked his head in the door. "Are we …" he trailed off, then came over where Ron was huddled in Mum's lap. "Do you want me to stay home with Ron?"

"No, Charlie, that's alright," Mum sighed. "Come on, Ronny, let's go see if we can find you something else to wear…."

"Really, Mum, I don't mind," Charlie said. "I don't think Aunt Muriel would mind, either, and it doesn't look like Ron's really up to going, anyway … she looks pretty upset."

After a moment, Mum sighed. "Alright, you two can stay here. Ginny, Percy, let's go. We're probably late as it is."

Charlie squeezed Ron's shoulders reassuringly as evryone left, then led him out the back to the garden. They sat under the big tree, Charlie attempting to lure a garden gnome over while Ron just stared at the house, trying to understand how everything had gone so wrong.

"So," Charlie said after a little while. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Ron shook his head. Then he said, "It was the stupid dress' fault," and the whole story came spilling out.

"What's wrong with them?" Ron demanded when he had finished his story. "Why can't they see that I'm a boy? Why does everyone think I'm a girl? What's wrong with me?"

For as long as he could remember, Ron had never been a girl. The problem was, he had the name and body of a girl. He could remember trying to explain to his parents, as soon as he was old enough to know the words.

"You got hit with a curse, Mommy, when I was inside you, and it turned my boy-body into a girl-body. But don't worry, I'm still a boy inside."

Unfortunately, that had only seemed to worry his mum more, so soon he had stopped trying to explain, and started trying to understand. Surely his parents would remember being hit with a curse. Maybe there was another explanation. That was when he found a niggling worry in the darkest corner of his mind, one that he tried and tried to push away.

What if this was somehow his fault?

For a while, when he was six, he tried to be a girl, to please his mum. "My darling girl," she would murmur to him at night. "My precious, magical girl." And sometimes, if they were alone together, his dad would tell him: "Your mother was so happy when you were born. Don't tell your brothers, but I think that every time the healer told her it was a boy, she was just slightly disappointed. Not to say that she doesn't love your brothers very much," he added hastily, "All you children are special and loved. Every one of you."

So Ron had brushed his shoulder length hair, worn the dresses his mother got him, tried to play fairies and pigmy-puffs with Ginny, and tried his very best to act like the girl his parents wanted him to be.

Then, about a month after his seventh birthday, his parents had left on vacation for a week, leaving Bill in charge. The moment they left, Percy barricaded himself in his room to study and complete his homework assigned over break, the twins ran outside with threats of nasty curses to whoever followed them, Ginny started throwing a fit because she wanted to go with them, and Ron found himself alone in the sitting room with Charlie while Bill simultaneously tried to calm Ginny down and make sure the twins didn't manage to blow anything up.

"I kind of feel like I should be helping Bill … " Charlie trailed off, glancing towards the kitchen where Ginny was still complaining at the top of her lungs. He made no effort to move from his chair.

Ron, who was dressed in his favorite red T-shirt and hand-me-down jeans, jumped up from his seat. "Can we play quidditch?" he asked eagerly.

Charlie hesitated, glanced at the kitchen again, then up the stairs. "Well, I was going to –"

"Charlie!" Bill called from the kitchen. "Help!"

"I'm playing quidditch with Ron!" Charlie called, then hastily ushered Ron out the back door. "C'mon, you can try guarding two goals at once."

Two hours later, as they trudged down the hill back to the house, Ron kept swatting irritably at his bangs. It seemed to him that they had decided to grow long enough to get in the way, but not long enough to pull back, and whenever he tried to tuck them behind his ears, they just ended up falling out again. Charlie kept throwing glances at him. When they had put the old brooms back the the shed, instead of going back inside, Charlie took Ron around the back of the house. "Stay here, and don't move," Charlie commanded, sitting Ron down on an upside-down, half rusted old bucket. "I'll be right back."

When he returned, Charlie was holding a pair of old kitchen scissors which looked liked they'd never been used. "Hold still," he said, bringing Ron's hair back so that it all lay down his back. "I'm cutting your hair.

As Charlie chopped off his hair, Ron hardly dared to breath. With each lock that was snipped away, it seemed as though twenty pounds had been lifted from his shoulders. When Charlie was done, he held out a mirror for Ron. Looking at his reflection, Ron felt his face burst into a wide grin.

"How's that?" Charlie asked, looking slightly smug.

"It's me!" Ron said happily, beaming at himself.

"I noticed that it kept getting in your face," Charlie explained as they went back inside to put the scissors away. "If I had hair that long, I know I would want to hack it off the first chance I got." He shook his head, tossing the scissors in the back of the first drawer he opened. "You're the only girl I know who seems to understand what a pain long hair is. I don't see how Mum and Ginny can stand it."

Ron stilled, one hand resting on the back of a chair, the other fingering his short, ragged locks. Charlie had cut his hair, had taught him quidditch, was the only one of his brothers who actually seemed to enjoy his company. Maybe now, with his short hair and dirty clothes, he was brave enough to tell Charlie his secret.

"Charlie," Ron said, nervously, "can I tell you something?"

"Sure." Charlie opened the snack cabinet and started rummaging through it. "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah." Ron pulled out a chair and plopped down. Charlie, having found a half-empty tin of jam tarts, sat down opposite him. After a minute or so, Charlie said, "So … you wanted to tell me something?"

"I'm not a girl," Ron said, one hand still in his short hair, the other breaking his tart into smaller and smaller pieces. When he glanced up and saw that Charlie didn't look angry or worried, only confused, he continued. "Something – I'm not sure what – happened, when I was inside Mum's tummy. I know I look like a girl, and you all think I'm a girl, but really, I just got the wrong body. On the inside, I'm a boy."

"How can you be a boy?" Charlie stared at him, squinting slightly. "I mean, with your hair cut you kind of look like a boy, and I know you don't like the same things Ginny does, but … I mean, you're a girl."

Ron stared at his tart.

"Aren't you?"

"Mum and Dad don't understand," Ron said. "I don't really understand, either. But, if I had a boy's body, no one would say that I wasn't a boy. It's only because I have a girl's body. But maybe if I look like a boy, Mum and Dad and everyone will finally see that I'm not a girl." Ron imagined that, feeling a slow smile spread across his face.

"Okay," Charlie said slowly. "Okay. I kind of have to think about this a little more, but I think I understand. You look like a girl, but you're actually a boy." Charlie frowned at this, then shrugged, shoving the last of his tart in his mouth. He swallowed, and pointed to Ron's shredded tart. "If you don't want that, give it to me. But if I were you, I'd eat it. We'll need all the fire power we can get when Bill finds out I cut your hair."

After that, Ron hadn't been able to go back to pretending to be a girl. After Mum and Dad got back from vacation and Bill, Charlie and Percy returned to school, he had refused to wear dresses unless his mum literally forced one over his head. Whenever someone called him Veronica, he would correct them. "My name's Ron," he'd say.

But while he finally felt like he knew how to ask for what he wanted, this also had unintended consequences. When his older brothers returned from school, Bill asked so many questions that Ron took to avoiding him. It wasn't that he didn't want people to ask him questions – sometimes he wished the others would just ask instead of staring at him weirdly – it was just that Bill asked so many question, and most of them Ron didn't know the answers to, or didn't even want to think about.

Percy just shook his head. "Why shouldn't I use your name? It's just a name. And there's really nothing wrong with dresses, Ronny. All the girls wear them at school, and they never complain about it." The next day at lunch, after Ron got in a fight with George about not being allowed to play Wizards and Warlocks because he was a witch, Percy informed him: "It's okay to be jealous of boys, but you shouldn't make such a fuss about it. Honestly, Ronny, it's not that big a deal." Ron then set about avoiding Percy at all costs, and the feeling seemed to be mutual.

At first, George didn't seem to mind. As time wore on, however, he seemed to get more and more agitated. He would tease Ron for "acting like a boy," refuse to let him play with him and Fred. At first, Ron was confused and hurt. George had never seemed to have a problem with him before, and it wasn't like he had changed.

Fortunately for Ron, Fred too seemed confused by George's behavior. Once, when Ron was spying on them after having been told to bug off by George, he overheard them arguing about it.

"Why does it matter if Ron plays with us?" Fred asked. "I don't mind."

"She's no fun anymore," George said, sounding rather put out. "She's trying to be a boy."

From his hiding place under the shrub, Ron could see Fred frowning. "Really? How do you try to be a boy?"

"She blows up on anyone calls her Veronica, and even when we just call her Ronny, she doesn't like it. Also, she refuses to play games with Ginny anymore, and she won't go within ten yards of a dress."

Now Fred just looked confused, and also a little annoyed. "That doesn't mean she's trying to be a boy. That just means she doesn't like her name – I wouldn't either, if my name were Veronica. It's ugly. And I wouldn't go near a dress, either. She just doesn't like typically girl's stuff."

There was a short silence, and then Fred added, "Besides, if we don't let her play with us, she'll rat us out to Mum, and then we won't be able to go flying anymore."

George huffed. "Fine! Fine. Let's go see if she still wants to play."

After that, George seemed to realize that Ron hadn't changed, and seemed happy enough to include him whenever he and Fred weren't working on one of their many secret projects.

It wasn't just his siblings, either. Whenever he corrected someone when they didn't call him Ron, his mum would sigh and roll her eyes. She would argue adamantly with him about wearing dresses, and he often found himself grounded in his room for hours because he would would throw a fit about not being allowed to run around without a shirt like Fred and George. She also started paying more attention to him. Every day, she'd tell him how she loved him, would ask how he was feeling, and make sure he knew that he was beautiful just the way he was. Although Ron knew why she was doing it, he wished that she wouldn't.

Dad started telling him stories of famous witches who made lasting impacts in the world. When he thought Ron wasn't looking, he would study him with a sad look in his eyes, and then look quickly away when Ron tried returned his gaze. Once, after a particularly rough day when he had hidden in the bathroom of a department store while his mother tried to get him to try on a second-hand dress for his cousin's birthday, he'd overheard his mother crying to his father after everyone was supposed to be in bed. As she'd asked him what they'd done wrong, he'd just said over and over again, "I don't know, Molly. I don't know."

Of his entire family, Ginny and Charlie seemed to be the most accepting of his new behavior. Ginny didn't even seem to notice that anything had changed. Whenever Mum or Dad told him to play with her, she'd start to pout. "Ron's no fun," she'd complain. "She won't play Pigmy-puff Pot with me, and I'm not allowed to fly so it's not like we can play quidditch." The one thing that did change was her attitude to how other people treated him. Whenever they were out, and someone called him Veronica or Ronny, she'd quickly correct them. "You'd best call her Ron," she'd advise in what she obviously thought was a discrete voice. "She'll raise a fuss if you don't."

Charlie just watched and listened. He was the one Ron ran to when he was feeling upset and misunderstood. He was the one who quietly corrected Mum and Dad when they called him Ronny, for all the good that did. He was the only one who seemed to understand that was more than just names, dresses and games.

Outside in the garden, Charlie finally gave up trying to coax the garden gnome closer, turning instead to study Ron with his light brown eyes.

"What makes you think there's something wrong with you?" he asked calmly.

"I'm the only one who's different," Ron said hollowly, staring at the cracked white paint on the door frame.

"So different is bad? There's nothing wrong with being different, Ron."

"There is!" Ron cried. "I don't want to be different. I wish I wasn't."

They sat in silence for a while before Ron added, "At least, not different this way."

Charlie sighed. "I don't know, Ron. I think I understand what you're feeling, and I can imagine it must be terrible. The thing is, you're right. You are different. I've never met anyone who feels even remotely like you do, and that's saying something because I've met a lot of people. Until you came along, I didn't even consider that someone might be unhappy in their body. I mean, wouldn't it make sense that our bodies and minds are the same thing?" Suddenly, Charlie frowned. "No, wait. That's not right. They're not, because dementors can separate the two. Weird."

He fell silent, considering this epiphany, and Ron continued staring at the house. Of course there was a difference, he thought miserably. If there wasn't he wouldn't have this problem. His fingers crept up to his hair, which was starting to hang past his ears again. It hadn't been cut since Mum trimmed it after Charlie cut it. Maybe if he let it grow out he would feel like a girl. Maybe if he pretended hard enough….

"Charlie, what do I do?"

"You and Mum could compromise. If she calls you Ron, you wear the dresses for special occasions."

"I hate dresses." Ron grumbled.

"Oh!" Charlie gasped. "I just had a brilliant idea! Come on," he shot to his feet and grabbed Ron's arm, tugging him up. "You can show me what it's like. I'll get in one of Mum's dresses, you can get in one of yours, and we can both pretend to be girls."

It was on the tip of Ron's tongue to protest, to argue that he most definitely did not want to get in a dress, that was the whole reason he was home in the first place, when he realized what Charlie had said. We can both pretend to be girls. As though Ron, like Charlie, wasn't a girl in the first place.