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The fireplace is the heart of their home. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to Cho, but a lot of things about life with Ginny Weasley have been creeping up on her over the months. Like the cooking pot.
Ginny insists on having a cooking pot on the hob of their cooker at all times. It’s too big, holds far more food than she or Ginny could ever consume. Yet every time Cho comes home with arms laden with papers, hair dripping wet from when she wasn’t quick enough to put up a water-repelling charm, she’s greeted with a kiss from Ginny and a bowl of whatever has been bubbling away inside the pot. Later, when her hair is dry and her work robes have been swapped for comfy pyjamas, when she’s mopping up the last bit of gravy from the bowl with a doorstep slab of homemade bread, she’ll complain about the pot taking up so much space in their already tiny flat.
But it’s a token protest, a point of pride more than annoyance, and Ginny knows it. Just shakes her head and laughs and kisses away the last frowns from a stressful work day, and every time, the cooking pot stays.
The fireplace, though. It’s not an annoyance. It’s just...busy.
Cho’s mum had always insisted on keeping their fireplace off the grid. “If it’s that important, they’ll owl,” she’d say, and a younger Cho would shrug and go back to whatever it was she’d been doing at the time. Fireplaces just didn’t factor into her childhood.
Ginny and Cho’s fireplace had no such rule. Oh there were restrictions, of course, but for the most part, the fire stayed lit and the lines were open. Floo calls came in at all hours. There were frequently little piles of ash on the living room floor, from where a visiting relative or friend had shaken themselves off after arriving. Sometimes Cho understood why her mum had been so insistent. Sometimes Ginny would come back from a match caked in mud, muscles aching, and while Cho tried to shoo her towards the shower, the fire would blaze and something “urgent” would keep Ginny from the night of relaxation she so desperately needed.
When it came to the fireplace, though, there were too many good times to compete with the bad.
For every instance that one of the girls had thrown up their hands and sworn they’d be taking themselves off the floo line in the morning, there were a dozen more of them laughing as Charlie’s head bobbed in the grate and he told them about his latest trainee’s struggle with dragon wrangling. There were tears shed into the embers for Cho’s dying grandfather, and fears of loneliness whispered into the ash after a floo call ended while one of the girls was away for work.
Ginny’s hair had caught fire twice since they’d moved in. Sex in front of fireplaces was really not as fun as they’d thought it would be.
And then there were times like now. Ginny stretched out on the rug in front of the fireplace, her too-big pyjama top exposing freckled shoulders, bottom lip caught between her teeth as she held out a toasting fork and turned a crumpet above the flames. Cho leaning back against the armchair, wand dangling between two fingers, lazily untying and retying ribbons on the presents under the Christmas tree, her bare toes burying under Ginny’s stomach and making her shriek at the chill.
They’ll be going to The Burrow in the morning, after they’ve opened their presents to one another in the comfort of their own flat. Ginny’s eager to meet her newest niece. Cho’s still not sure how they’re going to get all of the stuff Ginny bought into The Burrow, but one thing is for sure.
It’ll be the fireplace that takes them there.