*a fanfiction by someone who shouldn't
be writing at 3 am jacked up on steroids
I don't own Harry Potter
HANDCUFFS
.*.
Snape and Dumbledore stared at the piece of metal connecting their wrists, seemingly unbreakable, as Albus flung his wand repeatedly at the handcuffs, attempting to break the bond holding the two professors captive to each other…
"Severus…" he said softly, after exhausting his spell options for release that he could call to mind, with a hint of anger and desperation in his voice. "What have you done?"
"Nothing," spat the Potions Master, yanking at his wrist, causing the Headmaster to fly forward with the motion. "This was your fault, if I recall, Albus."
"If we rationally examine the chain of events that led us here, I believe we would come to the conclusion that you, my friend, were the one who summoned this artifact," continued the greying wizard in a voice usually reserved for hysterical students, causing Snape to scoff even more at the demeaning behavior. Albus collected himself, brushing off his robes with his free hand and looking down at his other hand, which remained sadly tied to the other professor's, despite all of his magickings, silent and aloud. These cuffs were absolutely spell-resistant.
Snape looked around the vault impatiently, sneer apparent on his face even in the dim lighting of the depths of the Hogwarts basement. "If I may ask a question of the almighty, all-knowing Headmaster, what is a diabolical piece of dark magic like this doing in the bottom floors of a school?"
"This must have been here from long before my time. I wonder what other… things are down here that I am unaware of."
The two had heard reports from Filch about strange noises coming from the stairs to the deepest parts of the Hogwarts basement about a month ago. However, since Filch and Mrs. Norris were too scared to go down into those dungeons without magic, and the noises were continuing to haunt the grumpy janitor to the point of nagging, unending complaints to the Headmaster, Dumbledore had finally sighed and asked a free professor to accompany him to investigate. That free professor just happened to be Snape.
What they had found among the boxes of old curriculum and ancient Yule Ball decorations (why weren't these thrown out decades ago?) was a strange, shimmering chunk of metal lying on the floor. In an effort to reveal whether the object was dangerous, Snape had ended up accidentally summoning the item, which had promptly attached each side of itself to both of the wizard's outstretched wand hands. And it would not come off.
"If I were Headmaster," Snape drawled, "I would have cleared out this hellhole of a 'storage space' a long time ago. Sent students from detention to clean this up. Perhaps then this wouldn't have happened."
Albus turned his head slightly to roll his eyes at the eternal pessimism of his staff member, an action that, although hidden, wasn't gone unnoticed by the cranky Snape.
"We haven't even tried all of the options," the Headmaster pointed out with his eternal calmness. "Have you even lifted your wand in an attempt to assist in removing these?"
"Well, I thought I'd let the master magician exhaust his options first." Snape whipped his wand from his robes pocket, pointing the end at the metal between their hands. "Seperatum Metallicum." The only thing that happened was a spark, a flash, and then the remaining glow of hot metal in the chains between the two cuffs. Albus held his fingers over the links, pulling his hand away at the heat.
"The shape of the metal hasn't budged one bit," marvelled the Headmaster. "This is quite fascinating. I'd love to talk to the wizard who created such an object. Obviously must have been a master welder…"
"You can speculate on that all you want, Albus, once we figure out how to get out of here," sneered Snape through gritted teeth.
"You're absolutely correct, Severus. But I must ask, is this truly so unbearable to you? You do realize that we have been standing here for barely a few minutes."
"It's not unbearable," snapped Snape. "It's just-just, the proximity. It's… disconcerting. Do you not agree?" he continued to snip, crossing his free arm over his chest in an awkward half-fold and turning his body away.
"I do not find it that uncomfortable to be at this distance to an… old, close friend." Dumbledore also turned his body away, their wrists hanging between them, hands tilted inwards so as not to make contact. "However, I do think it is necessary to remove this artifact of bondage in order to continue our investigation of this room and, subsequently, move on with our evenings. I don't wish to waste any more of our precious time."
"As I do with all of the practical joke items I've discovered in students' grubby hands," drawled Snape grumpily, again pointing his wand at the bond between them. "Reveal your secrets."
The piece of metal on their wrists shimmered again in a wave across the surface, a hologram-pink gleam, revealing small letters of writing on the cuffs. Snape lifted his cuff closer to his face to read the inscription, just as Dumbledore also did the same. They ended up facing each other again with their handcuffed wrists between them, under their noses.
Snape squinted to read the delicate writing. "In order to release these cuffs which have been fastened..." he made out, turning his wrist to see if there was more writing.
"I believe there's more on this cuff, but it's too small for me to read," Albus muttered curiously, adjusting his failing reading glasses on his nose.
"Let me see," growled Snape, stepping to be shoulder-to-shoulder with the older wizard, pulling his wrist closer to his eyes. "...whoever in entrapment must…" Snape faltered, practically choking at what he was about to read. "...demonstrate... true passion."
"What in the name of almighty Merlin!" murmured Albus, his eyes slowly lifting to the rest of the room. "This is… a toy. A sex toy."
Snape, shaking his head in disgusted shock, pulled away again, nearly flinging Albus to the floor in the process.
"Severus, as silly as it is, we must consider that the only way to escape this entrapment may be to follow the instructions."
"And what would that involve?" hissed Snape, snapping his head towards his boss. "What sort of… passion exactly is it going to take for these to come off?" He lifted his hand in a fist between them, dragging Albus' along with him.
"Well, your astounding anger seems to be helping," commented the Headmaster with raised eyebrows, nodding sharply towards the cuffs, which had gone from their dull metal grey to a somewhat illuminescent red.
"There's more where that came from," growled Snape, flinging his hand down, again snapping Albus' wrist with him in a sharp move that caused the greying wizard to clench his jaw in pain.
"Then tell me, Severus," replied Albus, looking to the professor with challenge in his eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched up into an uncharacteristic, tiny smirk. "Tell me."
It didn't take very long for Snape's flaring nostrils and gritted teeth to explode into a monologue. "You. Infuriate. Me, Albus. The whole, holier-than-thou, wize-wizard act. You look down on everyone while you sit atop your grand pedestal, created by you and raised up high by all of your loyal brown-nosing superfans, like Potter and Weasley and the lot of them. You condescend, you smirk, you-you-you preen, and you don't DO anything," Snape half-yelled at this point.
"Severus," reasoned Albus, pursing his lips.
"Don't 'Severus' me," raged Snape. The cuffs were glowing a brighter red at this point, the sheen of the enchantment starting to become apparent over the metal. But Snape was not paying attention to this in his blustering anger, and Dumbledore was quite busy trying to listen to Snape while maintaining his own level of frustration that he wasn't noticing it as much either.
"Meanwhile, there's those of us who have sacrificed our entire selves, our entire lives, for the better of our kind and our world and what do we get? What do I get? I get no appreciation. I'm walked all over by everyone on both sides and never, ever do I get the thanks. No, it all goes to you."
Suddenly, Albus, fed up with all of it, grabbed the back of Snape's head with his free hand and dragged it to his. Their lips collided tersely, Snape still trying to muffledly continue his rant, Dumbldore trying to shush him by pressing his lips to his harder. Finally, something in Snape seemed to give up, or give in. His shoulders, which had been so tensed in rage before, dropped slightly, as did his cuffed wrist, and the attempted arguing stopped.
Something clanged to the floor, and Dumbeldore let go of Snape's head to release him in order for them both to see the enchanted handcuffs lying on the floor in the state that they had originally found them. Snape sniffed in the silence filling the chamber. Dumbledore, eyebrows drawn in a slight frown, put his hands on his hips and looked at the object on the ground.
"Well, that's over with. Looks like there's nothing down here after all. I'll come down here some other time to properly dispose of this… thing, with the proper spell-proof evidence bags and such. For now, I think we're done here." With that, Albus promptly turned and headed towards the stairs leading out the dungeon space, leaving Snape to shockedly trail after him after a few moments, walking stiffly and more shell-shocked than he had ever been in his life. And that's after serving as a double spy for Voldemort and for the Army all this time.
Meanwhile, behind a tall stack of old storage boxes, a wide-eyed and panicked Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger sat tensely, holding their breaths until the last footprints disappeared up the stairs and well after.
"Fuck," Hermione finally exhaled with all the anxiety she had been holding in, putting a hand to her forehead. "I cannot believe that just happened."
"What part of it?" mused a shocked Draco, horrified expression frozen on his features. He had never experienced something that perturbing in his entire life, and Draco was rarely bothered by anything.
"Looks like we're going to have to find a new hiding place," Hermione sighed, smoothing away at her frantic hair and ruffled skirt. "And we're going to have to make sure we don't leave our… stuff out like that if someone ever comes in again," she partly scolded, tossing Draco his discarded tie from the tiles.
"Merlin, fuck me," murmured Draco as he swiftly caught his tie, slinging his cloak over his shoulder as he stood, shaking his head at the girl. "I'm never going to be able to go to Potions class again."