Written for the "Bound" challenge over the dresdenflashfic LJ. This was done over a week ago and has now been recently released to be posted elsewhere.
"Harry, what are you doing?"
"What's it look like?" muttered the wizard, keeping his concentration focused on the task at hand. "Keep quiet. I need to focus."
Bob raised a questioning eyebrow, but kept silent and observed as Harry shifted his arms and pressed them together before wrenching them apart while twisting his hands in one large move. Harry's wrists managed to pull away from each other for about three inches before the handcuffs dug into Harry's skin.
"Ow!" Harry yelped. The metal cuffs banged back together with a solid clack.
"That's going to leave a mark," Bob commented, noting the painful looking red welts on Harry's wrists.
Frowning, Harry rubbed the sore spots with his fingers, albeit not very effectively. He gave the ghost a sour look. "You broke my concentration, is all."
"You need to concentrate to do a simple unlocking spell?" asked Bob. "How disheartening. It seems I left a rather large gap in your education."
"I'm not trying to open these with magic, Bob," Harry corrected, impatiently, missing the heavy sarcasm in the spirit's earlier comment. He shook out his hands a little, the handcuffs jangling at the gesture. "There's a way you can get out of these without a spell."
Bob bent at the waist to study the metal bands encircling Harry's wrists at a closer distance. "Are they real?" he asked.
" 'Course they're real," said Harry.
"Where did you get them?"
"Umm…"
The ghost raised a hand. "Never mind."
"It's the wrist action. I keep getting that wrong," Harry murmured, shaking his hands in a series of flicks. The handcuffs stayed firmly in place, as per their function.
"Might I ask why you are doing this pointless exercise?"
Harry shrugged, trying a twist and then a pull which gave him the same results. He grimaced as the hard edges of the cuffs scraped against the sensitive underside of his wrists.
"Harry, if these are real handcuffs they are not meant to open by a simple turning of your hands. Ask any arrested offender."
"It's not a simple turning," the wizard defended. "My dad could do it. I saw him all the time."
Bob wasn't one to keep a very diligent track of important dates. After the first few centuries, one tended to view the passing of a day as much like the next and the next and the next. But glancing at the dusty calendar sitting on Harry's desk, the ghost realized what date was approaching. He observed with slightly more respectful silence as Harry tried again and nearly bent his wrist backwards at the strain.
"Dammit," Harry muttered. "He made it look so easy."
"Aren't there trick handcuffs one can use?" Bob inquired.
Harry looked insulted. "Using trick ones would be cheating," he informed the spirit. "He always used real ones in his act. And when he practiced. I used to cuff him myself."
Bob didn't ask how it was a 10 year old could tell the difference between real handcuffs and fake ones.
"And he was able to open them?" asked Bob.
"Not all the way. You're supposed to get them to loosen enough to pull your hands out." Harry studied the cuffs with a stubborn look on his face. "I did it once when I was a kid. He taught me how. There's a way you can feel for the ratchet." Harry fiddled with the device again without much success. "I can't believe I forgot how to do this." After a few more minutes of jangling, the wizard let his wrists drop. With a defeated sigh, he flexed his fingers. The handcuffs flared up momentarily before promptly snapping open. "It's a lost art, I guess," he dejectedly concluded.
"I don't know," said Bob. "These may be a newer model. Perhaps they've been altered since your father's time," he suggested, gently.
Harry made a non-committal sound in the back of his throat. But looked at the unlocked cuffs with more speculation. "Yeah, maybe," he admitted.
"I'm sure Lieutenant Murphy will be more than knowledgeable in directing you toward a variety of different makes if you'd like to keep trying."
Harry rubbed at the red marks leftover by his earlier attempts. "Maybe later," he considered. He gave the ghost a wan smile. "I might need to stock up on some bandages first."
"I would invest in some anti-bacterial cream as well."
The wizard grinned. "You know, during his best days my dad could get out of cuffs in under 30 seconds," he proudly recalled.
Bob looked genuinely impressed. "That's very remarkable."
"Yeah," said Harry, fondly. "He was."
THE END