Find Yourself (In My Hands)
Harry rested his head on his folded arms and closely followed the delicate but swift glide of the henna cone over Padma’s outstretched palms. His eyes swiveled in every direction to catch up with every loop, every frill and every petal that painted her bare skin with effortlessly gorgeous patterns.
“Would you like to try it, Harry?” Harry looked up, adjusting the collar of his kurta. He blinked as if coming back from a trance and allowed the sound of girls singing and dancing in vibrant lehengas fill his ears. When he glanced at her intricately painted hands and then down at his own, they looked unnaturally empty all of a sudden.
The next second he was rolling up his long sleeves, sitting down next to the would-be-bride and wordlessly offering his hand, palm up. The mehndi-artist, a young girl with a long braid with flowers threaded into it smiled encouragingly at him. She flipped her thick braid over her shoulder and got to work.
Harry twisted the fingers of his free hand in the fabric of his dhoti when the cool, greenish-brown paste touched his skin, soon to become a part of the very lines of his palm once dried and washed. Within seconds half his palm and fingers were covered in delicate designs of every kind. He shared a fascinated smile with his friend who grinned and blew on her own hands coated with henna right up to her elbows.
“So whose name should I write?” the girl with the flowery braid asked.
“Huh?”
“She means,” Padma began and Harry turned sideways to face her, “do you have someone special whose name you’d like written on your hand with the henna designs? It’s a wedding tradition here to hide the name of your special one in your mehndi and let them find it later.” Harry blushed at her meaningful wink.
“Oh….”
Harry’s eyes automatically wandered to look at the man with the kohl lined silver eyes, blonde hair clashing adorably with the sapphire sherwani and those pale hands clutching the crooked golden dhoti as if his entire posh life depended on it while he tried not to choke on the barfi Ron was pushing into his mouth.
Harry bit his lips to hide the fond, smitten smile and softly whispered, “D.L.M.”