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When Molly and Arthur first began talking about children, they found a surprising commonality - particularly considering they both came from pureblood backgrounds. They were each dying to have a daughter.
There were potions to influence that sort of thing, of course, but that didn’t feel right to either of them. They knew they would love their children regardless of their sex, and it’s not like they only wanted one child.
When their first child was born, they didn’t bother with one of those spells to reveal the sex. They decorated a nursery that started off as gender neutral, picked two sets of first and middle names - one male, one female - and waited until the baby was born.
Bill Arthur Weasley was a joy, there was no denying that. And Molly and Arthur would swear up and down to anyone who asked that they were happy, even overjoyed to have a son - and they were. They were thrilled to be parents.
In private, they admitted - Molly confessed first, but Arthur agreed - that while they might have wished Bill was a girl, they loved him, with all their hearts, and wouldn’t change a thing. And Bill grew up with that love and never questioned it, even when he was much older and knew more about his family’s history and origins.
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When Molly became pregnant with the second child, Arthur suggested that this time, they do a spell to reveal the sex. They thought at that time, and for several years, that this child was a girl.
The nursery was, contrary to popular tradition, not pink. Molly was a redhead. Arthur was a redhead. Bill, too, was - not surprisingly - ginger from the day he was born. Molly made an executive decision that although pink was a lovely color, it was not going to be the best color for a daughter with flaming red hair. So the nursery was purple, for the most part, with hints of greens and blues.
Iseult Charlotte Weasley was born and the new parents were ecstatic. Over the moon would have been an understatement. Molly put ribbons and barrettes in her child’s hair, girly dresses from the moment Iseult was out of onesies, feminine not-pink clothing and accessories and decorations.
Iseult was having none of it. The Muggles would have called Iseult gifted, which Iseult was, even from an early age. Iseult was just shy of ten months old when the baby first spoke. Iseult’s first word was “pants”.
“Pants” became a fixation in Iseult’s vocabulary, and indeed became the stand-in for any word for any type of clothes for several months - “pants” could mean shoes, or socks, or a shirt, or sometimes the dresses and skirts.
Other words quickly followed, then words strung together in semi-meaningful ways, then semi-complete sentences.
By the time Iseult was three, Iseult had successfully communicated that Iseult wanted to go by the middle name which Molly and Arthur had picked. Iseult became Charlotte, which was quickly shortened to Charlie.
It was just after that time when they found out that there would be a third child. Maybe Arthur had gotten a little tispy on New Year’s, and Bill and Charlie had been with their grandparents, and, well, maybe the contraceptive spell had gotten bungled.
It took Molly a couple months to realize, and then she and Arthur laughed and were happy enough about welcoming a third child into the world.
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Percy was a quiet baby, not much for crying or wailing, gazing at the world around him with eyes that always struck Molly as oddly solemn.
Arthur received a promotion at work, which helped with the fact that each child stretched their budget a little further.
Three children in, and Molly and Arthur thought they had found a calling for parenthood. It was exhausting. There was no denying that. One night, when Percy was a couple months old and Bill and Charlie were asleep, Molly said, half-jokingly, “Maybe we shouldn’t stop at three.”
Arthur laughed and dropped a kiss to her forehead. “I don’t know, dearest. You’re just saying that because Percy sleeps through the night most nights. But the other day I caught Bill and Charlie - I almost could not believe it when I saw what they were doing - apparently Charlie had dared Bill to see which of them could get more of the kitchen dishes covered in mud than the other. Thank Merlin for magic, it was a complete mess.”
Molly wrinkled her nose at the thought of her favorite cutlery being doused in mud. “And you’re just now telling me about this?”
Her husband chuckled. “You were taking a nap. It’s not like there was any point in waking you up when it was an easy enough fix.”
Pursing her lips, Molly put a thought into the air that had previously been unspoken. “Arthur...do you think there’s anything...wrong...with Charlie?”
“No, why? She’s different, maybe. Being different doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong,” he replied.
Molly began to give up on putting Charlie into dresses on a day to day basis except for “official” occasions, and each “official” occasion became a bit more of a struggle than the one before it. On a Saturday morning in March, right before the wedding of a distant aunt, Charlie went from being difficult about it to outright refusing.
“Mum! I’m not wearing a dress! I’m not wearing anything like that ever again!” Charlie wasn’t there quite yet but a full-blown tantrum was fast approaching. The family were running late already and Molly did
not
want to deal with an outburst just then.
Molly sat back on her heels and sighed, knowing she was going to regret her next question but unable to find a different one right in the moment. “Alright, well then, what do you want to wear?”
Charlie’s lower lip stuck out in a pout. “Something of Bill’s”.
“Bill’s a boy,” Molly pointed out.
“So am I,” Charlie retorted.
Molly sighed, and distantly some part of her conscious mind realized she had absolutely seen this coming, even if she had not been fully aware of it.
That was the first time Charlie wore Bill’s hand me down dress robes, and the last time Molly ever tried to force Charlie into a dress.