The Consequences of Poaching

By: Tezza1502

Disclaimer: The universe of 'Harry Potter' belongs to J. K. Rowling. Not I.

Notes: Short, dark bit of Ginny!bashing. Rated 'T' for a small bit of swearing, and adult themes. The couple within was picked completely at random. Just a minor dribble/drabble to remind me that I am actually still capable of writing, even if its just mindless shite that's been done before ad nauseam…

In the seven years since the fall of Voldemort, Auror Ronald Weasley thought he had seen the length and breadth of both the evil and the stupidity that wizards and witches were capable of. Especially the British pure-blooded ones.

Unfortunately, most of what he had seen now paled in comparison to the act some fool had just perpetrated on Harry Potter. Harry Potter, one of the top five most powerful magical beings on the planet.

"MUM!" He yelled as he entered the Burrow running. "We need to get to St. Mungo's right now."

"Ron, dear, what's wrong?" Molly said as she stood up from the table.

"Mum, it's Harry. He and his wife have just been brought in. He's unconscious, and we think she's been cursed somehow."

"Really?" someone asked from behind Molly. "Do they know how?"

"Gin?" Ron started as he finally noticed that his mother had had company when he burst in. "What are you doing here? I thought you were still on tour in Europe with the Harpies?"

Ginny giggled. "Oh no, the tour finished a week ago. I've been home for a few days, now." She leant forward. "So, what's happened to Harry?"

Ron frowned slightly. Ginny had never accepted that Harry had gotten married to someone other than her, or that he and his wife were truly bound in mind, heart, soul and magic. It had worried all of the Weasley men, the way she would never even acknowledge Padma Potter's presence, much less talk to the woman. But, after a year or two, she had seemed to have let her crush on Harry go.

Now, something about his sister's attitude was setting off Ron's Auror training strongly.

"From what I heard, Harry is in a coma. Nothing can bring him out of it."

"Oh." She frowned. "And… her?" Ginny barely managed to keep the contempt out of her voice.

"Padma is… not all there." Ron shrugged. "She's just staring off into nothing. The healer's are completely stumped. It's like her mind is gone."

"Oh dear." Molly raised a hand to her face as she gasped. "The poor girl must be in shock."

Ron almost missed the quiet 'excellent' from his sister. All of a sudden, a horrible suspicion formed within him.

"Ginny?" She focused her attention on him, trying to school her expression. "What did you do?"

"To who?" She asked, the tips of her ears starting to go red.

When Ron saw that reaction, the suspicion grew into the beginnings of real fear. "To Padma. You know, Harry's wife."

Ginny snarled at that, further confirming Ron's fears. It was often said that the Weasleys were horrible at keeping secrets, especially from each other. They were such an emotional family, and their blush responses gave them away every time. Every time.

"Oh fuck."

"Ronald Weasley! Language!" Molly reprimanded her youngest son.

Ron sat down heavily at the kitchen table, all thoughts of getting his mother and sister to St. Mungo's forgotten. "Mum, if Ginny's gone and done what I think she has, bad language is the least of our worries."

"What are you talking about?" Molly asked as she turned from Ron to her daughter. "Why would you say something…like…" The Weasley matriarch petered out as she got her own look at Ginny's face.

"Ginny?"

"What?" Ginny looked from her mother to her brother.

"Ginny dear, is their something you want to tell us?" Molly asked, a slight quaver creeping into her voice.

Unable to avoid the two stares that were directed at her, and, truthfully, wanting to boast a bit, Ginny said, "She was always wrong for my Harry, you know."

"What?" The other two Weasleys blurted out together.

"She was always too clingy. Always touching him. And, she never pushed him. My Harry always needed someone pushing him to succeed. I watched how hard Hermione had to push him to get him to do his homework at Hogwarts. He needs someone behind him, motivating him. And she keeps him at home all the time, never letting him out. I mean, you never see his photo in to Daily Prophet social pages. All those gala's, and ball's, and parties, the ministry throws every year to celebrate the defeat of You-Know-Who, and he never gets to go to one. I'd have him out all the time, enjoying the perks of what he fought so hard for, when he saved us all. Saved me. He went through so much, suffered so much. Its time he got something for his troubles. It's time the public finally showed their gratitude to him, and she hides him away. Away from my Harry's adoring public."

Ron listen in horror as his sister continued to ramble about how she would parade Harry around like a show pony, with her on his arm. He knew how much Harry hated his fame. Hated the fact that the British Wizarding public seemed to blithely ignore the facts behind what they were celebrating. The death of Harry's parents. Six years of danger, pain, death and suffering at Hogwarts. That final year before the ultimate defeat of Voldemort.

They were celebrating the most painful parts of Harry's life. And he wanted no part of it.

It had taken Ron a couple of years himself, before he understood why Harry had more or less withdrawn himself from magical society. He had nearly lost his own wife, Hermione, to his selfish need to be in the spotlight, before he decided that he had enough of the endless parties, and settled down properly.

Blinking, he realised that Ginny was still going on about her plans for Harry. "Ginny!"

She paused mid-sentence. "What?"

"What did you do to Padma and Harry?"

"Nothing!" She said defiantly. "I did nothing to Harry."

"What about Padma?" Ron pressed on.

"What? Oh, her." Ginny waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing she doesn't deserve."

Ron's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Fine." She rolled her eyes dramatically. "She wants to hide. To stay in the background. To keep my Harry in the shadows with her. So, I found something that would let her."

"Explain."

"Oh for pity's sake, Ron. Don't be such a drama queen." She waved a hand at him airily.

"NOW!" Ron slammed a fist down on the kitchen table with enough force to make everything on it jump a few inches in the air. Ginny finally focussed her attention fully on her brother, and noticed that he was angrier than she had ever seen him.

"I slipper her a potion." She blurted out in her shock.

"Which does what?" He hissed through gritted teeth.

"It's a liquid obliviate. Completely irreversible. That man-stealing skank's personality is completely gone, never to return." Ginny sounded quite proud of herself. "I found it during the Hollyhead Harpies tour through Albania last year, in an old magical book store. It was bloody difficult to make, too." She sighed, happy to finally be able to boast about all her hard work in saving her man from the clutches of that little dark-skinned tramp.

"The best thing, is that her body will soon follow her mind. The potion wipes out the memory of everything, including the things our bodies do on their own, without thinking about it. Pretty soon, she will even forget how to breathe." Ginny continued to talk, oblivious to the horrified expressions being directed at her by her mother and brother. "No pesky empty husk of a body, clinging on uselessly to life. Nothing to drag my Harry's mood down all the time, like what used to happen to Neville with his parents. He deserves a fresh start to our new life." She nodded to herself in satisfaction.

Molly was speechless. How could her little girl do such a thing to another human being?

Ginny correctly interpreted her mother's shocked look. "Oh come on, mum. You always go on about how you slipped a potion to dad to get him interested in you. Why shouldn't I be able to do something similar for the man I love? And even you've said in the past that that bitch wasn't right for him. I'm just standing up and taking back what's mine!" She whined to her mother. "Oh, I'll give him time to grieve, an' all that. I figure a month of two should be enough to get over her-"

"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuckety fuck fuck." Ron was now sitting down with his head in his hands, trying not to hyperventilate. "You really have no fucking idea what you've done. What you've just set in motion." He looked up and glared at his sister. "Do you, you stupid little girl!"

"Ron? What are you talking about?" His mother asked.

"She," he pointed a shaking finger across the table at Ginny, "has just essentially admitted to killing Padma Potter, wife and soul-bonded mate to Harry Potter."

"So?" Ginny asked, blithely.

"SO!" Ron repeated. "So, when one half of a soul-bound couple dies, the other half withers away soon after."

Molly understood first. It took Ginny a little longer. "...no..."

"Yes." Ron growled. "You've managed, in a fit of jealousy, to do what Voldemort and a death-eater infested ministry failed to do. You've killed Harry Potter."

"No." Ginny sobbed, not wanting to believe her brother. Everything was supposed to be better with her out of the way. Everything was supposed to be perfect!

"Oh, but it gets better." Ron growled. "If one of a bonded pair dies through violence, or unnatural means, like say, being irreversibly turned into a mindless husk," He screamed, "The other bondmate will live only long enough to mete out justice to the person or persons responsible for violating their bond in such a way."

"Wh-what are you saying , Ron?" Molly asked shakily.

"I'm saying that if there are any final words you want to say to your soul-killing bitch of a daughter, I'd get them said quickly." He replied venomously. "As soon as Harry wakes up, his magic is going to lead him right to her." He pointed at a rapidly paling Ginny. "After that, well…"

"You can stop him, right. You're an Auror." Molly asked. "It'll be against the law. It'll be murder. Harry wouldn't do that! Not to us. Not to a Weasley." She wailed as she finished.

Ron sighed as he took his mother's hands in his as he guided her into a chair. "Mum, when Harry first told us about the bond between him and Padma, Hermione went a little research crazy. She found every scrap of information she could on soul bonds. And she made me read them all." He smiled slightly at the memory. "One thing that stood out to me, seeing as I was going through Auror training at the time, was the rights and laws surrounding a bound couple."

He closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry, Mum. What Ginny did comes under some very old laws, laws that date back further than the time of Merlin. Basically, whoever interferes in a soul bond, forfeits any protection from the law. Legally, Harry will be allowed to not only do what he wishes to get some justice from Ginny, but do whatever it takes to get to her."

"Whatever. It. Takes." He leant back. "If we hide her in the basement, he would destroy the Burrow to get to her. If we get in his way, he will kill us without a second thought. And he will not be punished for it. In fact, once he's done, he will not long live anyway. He has the right, enshrined in law and by magic itself, to do whatever he needs to, to kill the one who harmed his bond."

He stood up abruptly and wiped a hand over his face. "Merlin, it started out as such a good day." he mumbled tiredly. "Mum, I need you to fire call Dad. After that, call everyone else. I'm going to get Hermione." He turned to go outside so he could Apparate home from beyond the Weasley property wards.

"Why?"

He paused as he reached to doorway. "Because I think our family should get a chance to say their goodbyes to the dead woman sitting across from you, before Harry wakes up."

-FIN-

More Notes: I know. I know. Its a spiteful, pointless little story. Feel free to hate it as much as you want.

It is, however, the first thing my muse has vomited out in my direction in some months. So I thought I'd pay it forward, and projectile vomit it out into the electronic ether.

Later. T