Fires Burning Bright
The first night he didn't see them. Instead, he saw his mother coming from the parlor being extra careful to be quiet. He stood on the stairs and watched her stand in the doorway watching something with an odd smile on her face. She closed the door with a soft click and walked away toward the kitchen shaking her head thoughtfully.
The second night he didn't see them either. He had been looking for Hermione, wondering if she would help him with that report Moody was just demanding that he do (paranoid old codger). Instead, he found his mother coming from the parlor, closing the door behind her. He asked his mother if he knew where she was and she told him that she had fallen asleep in the parlor and not to disturb her. Ron didn't think much about it and trudged up the stairs to do his report on his own.
The third night, however, he beat his mother to the parlor.
Hermione, his Hermione, was lying on the couch in front of the fireplace, nestled in the arms of none other than Draco Malfoy. She was sleeping, head against his bare chest, one hand holding Malfoy's pale one with their fingers entwined loosely. Malfoy lay beneath her, watching her slumbering form with half-lidded eyes and twirling one of her curls around his finger. Ron watched as she shifted slightly in her sleep, Malfoy smirking down at her.
At first, Ron was shocked. Then his shock turned to anger, and his anger to fiery hatred.
At Malfoy. At Hermione. At his mother who knew about this and didn't tell him.
He was livid but even though he found himself loathing Hermione in that moment, he couldn't bring himself to break her away from Malfoy. She seemed so peaceful there, with him, in front of the fireplace. She seemed content, at peace with the world with the flames sparkling in her hair.
Maybe that was why he hated seeing them like that. Because he knew that no matter how hard he seemed to try, he only succeeded in making her cry.
But, then again, so had Malfoy.
Or so, Ron had thought.
That night he had stormed from the Grimmauld Place, intending to just get away, away from Malfoy, from Hermione, and from fireplaces that seemed to haunt every waking thought.
However, he couldn't help but find it ironic that he found himself resulting to alcohol that burned his throat.
He only wished that it could burn his memories as well.