A Magical Princess

Chapter 34

Hari had landed in her bedroom. Probably, she had thought to herself a little numbly, because she felt safe there. In the room she shared with her husband, her husband that she had just caught with another woman. She slapped a hand over her mouth to prevent the sob there from escaping.

No, she reprimanded herself even while tears fell from her eyes. No, he doesn't get to do this to you.

With that thought, she was galvanized into action. With a snarl she took out her wand and pointed it at the wardrobe. It flung itself open and her clothes whipped out from it, making their way down the hall to the unused guest room. She then marched into their bathroom, where she pointedly ignored their toothbrushes sitting next to each other and sent her things dancing out of the room and down the hall.

"Hari," his voice, agonized, said from behind her.

She twisted away from his touch to her shoulder with another snarl. He was staring at her with something close to desperation, and his hands were held palm up towards her. Hari's things were moving around them in a stream, still marching out the door towards her bedroom.

"It's not what it looked like," he tried, and she scoffed.

"I know you must think I'm some sort of idiot, especially after you managed to fool me into thinking this was an actual marriage," he flinched and opened his mouth, probably to protest, but she just talked over him. "But I know what I saw. You skipped out on a date with me to be with another woman. Oh god, I am an idiot," she said with a small, humiliating sob, and scrambled out of his grasp when he tried to reach for her.

"I believed you when you said you were working late. I actually packed you a dinner, because I felt bad that you were stuck at the office."

"Hari, please -" he said and she shook her head.

"I'm done listening to you," she said coldly and apparated into the guest room.

She slammed the door and quickly put up wards so he couldn't get in. She then used a silencing charm so she didn't have to listen to him pounding on the door and begging for her to talk to him.

Hari didn't sleep that night.

She spent the next three days avoiding her husband, trying and failing to think of a solution. The sad truth was, she'd fallen in love with him. How was she supposed to continue living in the same house as the man she loved, knowing that he didn't feel the same way? Shikamaru, of course, knew something was going on, but Hari had no plans to clue him into why she was now sleeping in the guest room and suddenly too busy to eat dinner with her family every evening.

Shikaku had tried to corner her more than once, and looked increasingly annoyed with her when she simply apparated out of his reach. He'd tried to trap her in his shadows to force her to stay still, and had only uttered the words, "Hari, there was nothing remotely sexual about -" before her magic exploded out of her in a mix of anger and panic that sent them both flying in opposite directions. The panic, because she was afraid that if she let him talk to her, she'd believe anything he said just so she'd stop feeling so miserable.

Michi tried to approach her at the market, face thunderous, the day after the shadows incident. "Listen, you spoiled, idiotic princess," she'd hissed at her.

Rai had stepped forward, but Hari motioned for her to stop, her own anger rising in her. Hari knew that Shikaku was the one who had stepped out of line and betrayed her, but Michi had set out to ruin Hari's marriage from the beginning, and worse, she had succeeded.

"Talk to Shikaku, so he can tell you nothing happ -" Hari calmly walked out of the market a few moments later, leaving a Petrified Michi floating upside down in the air behind her.