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Harry looked over them. There were quite a few hand carved wooden flutes, as well as a number of finely crafted ones made of metal, mostly silver in color, though a few appeared to be brass. "Maybe, it doesn't feel right though for me to replace it. That and these are a tad expensive, I'd rather not use the money if I don't have to." The price tags for these did imply that they were a little upscale. A few of the wooden ones were only a few galleons, but one of the metal ones, gold in colour, had a price tag that said 100 galleons. Harry did have that kind of money, his inheritance was rather extensive, but it wasn't something he was willing to buy at this moment, especially when his current flute was very acceptable.
"I suppose you're right. Oh! They have sitars! I didn't think I'd see any here." Padma dashed off to another side of the store, and Harry followed behind. Padma was stood in front of a small selection of stringed instruments. They were very long, with a pear shaped bottom and another nodule coming out near the top of the neck of the instrument. It had many strings, two of which seemed to be larger and of a different color than the rest. Several small knobs near the top of the neck were obviously meant for tuning the instrument.
"What's a sitar?" Harry asked, confused. He hadn't heard of that before, and hadn't seen one of these instruments in person.
"This is a sitar. It's an instrument from India. They're kind of like a guitar, but really only in that they're a string instrument that you hold in a similar way. This has a lot of strings, but you actually only play a few of them, the rest of them are called 'sympathetic strings'. They just make noise when you're playing the main strings, and add some richness to it. Unlike a guitar, these things here, called frets, curve up, where they are flat on a guitar. That curve lets you bend the strings more, getting more possible sounds out of them." Padma said, pointing out various bits of the instrument.
"You know a lot about this, do you play?" Harry asked, amazed.
"A bit, my father taught me. Parvati would play the tabla to go with me. The tabla is a pair of drums, tuned high and low." Padma said.
"That's amazing! I never knew." Harry said.
"I normally don't mention it. It's not easy to bring a sitar over from India, so I can't really play at all except during the summer." Padma said. "Maybe I'll ask my parents for the money to buy one."
"I'd love to hear you play some day." Harry said, locking his hand with Padma's.
"I'd love to play for you." Padma said, looking into Harry's eyes. Padma pulled him to a small sitting area in the corner of the shop and sat down with him.
"Everything okay?" Harry asked, looking to Padma.
"Yeah, I'm just… really happy." She said, fiddling with her hair with the hand that wasn't currently locked with Harry's.
"I'm glad. I like seeing you happy. It makes me really happy." Harry said, smiling at her.
Padma flushed a little bit, before looking down and smiling at the floor. With a deep breath, she looked up at Harry and said "I love you Harry Potter. I have for a while now. Probably since before the Basilisk incident. I wasn't sure what those feelings were then, but I am now."
"I… I love you too Padma. I think I can say that pretty confidently now." Harry said, as he leaned in for a kiss.
Unlike their first kiss, which had been a clumsy affair done out of frustration and teasing, this was softer, more tender. It was a culmination of their relationship to this point, and a promise of things to come.
"Oh, I wish I didn't have to send you off soon. But I have to play nice. I know you probably are going to say 'I love you' to all the rest of the girls, because I know you do. I can tell how much you love all of us. Just… make sure there's always enough love in there for me, no matter how much you give to the others." Padma said, leaning against him.
"Of course there will be Padma. Besides, you get to lord being both the first kiss, and the first 'I Love You'." Harry said, laughing a bit.
"Yeah, but Daphne beat the rest of us into saying it to you first." Padma said. "I'll keep that in mind though, although I'm sure the rest of the girls won't let me have any more firsts. I've gotten too many."
"We'll see, I think I get a say in that as well." Harry said.
"No, I'll relinquish that. You have to treat us equally, and while I would love to be the first in everything, it wouldn't be fair to the others. They can compete for theirs. I'm satisfied with what I've gotten." Padma continued to lean against his side, simply enjoying the closeness.
After a few minutes, a small ding rang out between Harry and Padma, which caused a small frown to appear on the Indian girl's face. "Seems my time is up. I've got to send you off to Daphne now. She said she'll be waiting for you at Honeyduke's. See you back at school Harry." Padma said, giving him a quick kiss before sending him on his way.