Work Text:
It had been a very nice day. The sun was warm. Harry was wearing a brand new linen shirt. He had just finished having lunch on a patio with his best friends Ron and Hermione. He even had a bag of leftovers, meaning he didn't have to figure out dinner tonight, score!
Harry had just been walking on the pavement, musing about where he'd head to next.
It had happened so fast. All of a sudden, someone had shoved him hard into another stranger. Harry had stumbled, tripping into the warm body, trying to catch himself and not fall to the ground.
Then, the coldness of metal around his wrist and a loud click!
When Harry caught his bearings, he found himself HANDCUFFED to the stranger he had fallen into and that their assailant was running away. Harry didn't even have a chance to yell out before they turned and disappeared from view down an alleyway.
Instead, Harry stood there on the pavement, dumbstruck, handcuffed to a stranger.
What. The. Fuck.
He looked to his wrist, back up to the mouth of the alley the handcuff-er had escaped down, and then back down to his wrist.
Could he chase after them? Probably not, not while Harry was attached to the stranger.
If he could get the handcuffs off though…
Harry pulled again lightly on their joined wrists, the chains of the handcuffs jingling quietly. They seemed solid, with hardly any gives. Without the key or someone to cut him out, Harry was going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future.
Unless…
Harry flexed his hand, rotating his wrist. He circled his thumb. If he could dislocate it, he might be able to slide his wrist out.
That seemed like the best option.
He reached for his thumb and grasped it firmly. He pulled on it lightly. He wasn't really sure how exactly he was supposed to dislocate it, but surely there was only one way to do so.
Hopefully this wouldn't hurt too bad, he thought.
As he was about to yank it out of the socket with all of his strength, the stranger cleared their throat.
Harry startled, too engrossed with getting out to remember he was attached to another person. He looked up to the stranger.
He was relatively handsome, with a sharp jawline and thick, black hair that was parted to the side.
"Were you about to dislocate your own thumb?" The stranger asked, pointedly staring at Harry's hands.
"Uhm… No?" Harry said, slowly releasing his grip on his own thumb.
The stranger looked unimpressed, raising his eyebrow.
"…Maybe? Look, I've seen people do it on TV. It always works."
The stranger looked at Harry with a baffled look on his face.
"What?"
The other man shook his head, causing his curls to bounce. "Nothing. Carry on how you see fit."
"I mean, surely you have another idea? Maybe we could go to the cops, get them to cut it off."
"No," he said bluntly.
Harry sputtered. "What else are we supposed to do then?"
"I suppose we can start with introductions. Looks like we will be together for the foreseeable future," the man said with a smile. He held out his non-cuffed hand for Harry to shake. "My name is Tom Riddle. What would the name of the pretty boy I have the honour of being linked with be?"