Faraday's cage by Lothlorien

A/N: Hello everyone. This is my first fic in english and it hasn't been betaed, so I apologize for any mistakes that you find. And please read and review.

Summary: post werewolf-prank. Dumbledore decides to reconcile two sworn enemies by locking them in room together for two months. What could possibly go wrong?

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Even the comp I'm using to post this from is my brothers...

A/N 2.0: 'bla' - Severus' thoughts

'bla' - Sirius' thoughts

Ch. 1

"This has got to stop," said Dumbledore in a tired voice. "Your behaviour is unacceptable and it will not be tolerated anymore!" He started pacing. »Nothing seems to work. You obviously don't care about house points and detention doesn't faze you at the least. In consideration to that an alternative punishment has been proposed. Isolation. You will be locked together in a room until you learn how to function normally with each other. Or at least learn to ignore each other."

"What!?!" came the collective cry of two black-haired students standing in the headmasters office.

"Professor you can't lock me in a room with him," continued one of the boys. "He's already tried to kill me once. Merlin only knows what he'll do if we're isolated with no one to control him!"

"Don't get your hopes up, Snivellius," said the other boy. "I wouldn't touch you with a 10 feet pole in someone else's hand."

"Well the issue here isn't what you wouldn't do with someone else's hand; it's what you would do with your own. And that is something I am not eager to discover."

"Silence!" Both boys obeyed the headmaster immediately. "This is exactly what I was talking about. Such behaviour cannot and will not be tolerated," said Dumbledore in an annoyed voice. "Here's how this is going to work: you will be placed in a room which has already been prepared. You will remain in this room until you start to tolerate one another. You will have no contact with the rest of the school population. Also, your wands will be removed," Dumbledore raised his hand when he noticed they were trying to interfere. "This is not a negotiation. You will learn to live with each other or you will be expelled. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," came the reply from both boys.

"Good," said the elder wizard. "Then follow me."

He led the boys through the dungeons until they came to a picture of Dante's map of hell. Severus, who was the only one of the two to ever read a book that wasn't mandatory, found it appropriate, where as Sirius, who didn't know what he was looking at, simply found it weird. Dumbledore ushered them in and closed the doors.

The room the entered was rather big. It had two four-poster beds, a table with 2 chairs, a couple of comfortable looking sofas in front of the fireplace and shelves that held, by Sirius' opinion too many and by Severus' too few, books. There were also a few board games and magazines. Dumbledore gave them the grand tour.

"The first door to the left leads to a bathroom and the second leads to a walk-in closet. All of your things have already been brought there. On your right is the summoning chamber. It will provide you with anything you want, as long as you ask politely. You don't want to hurt its feelings and not get what you asked for, do you?"

'Yeah, because I care so deeply about the feelings of a summoning chamber,' thought Severus.

"Are there any questions?" asked Dumbledore.

"Yes," said Sirius. "The school year ends in a week. How do you hope to keep us here after that?" he asked hopefully.

"I have already gained the permission from your guardians to keep you here for the summer."

'Of course. My mother dearest would allow anything if it means making me miserable. It's always helpful to know you have such loving parents', thought Sirius sarcastically.

"Anything else you'd like to ask?" continued the headmaster.

"No, sir," answered the boys.

"Well in that case, I'll see you when you start acting civilized," said Dumbledore abd left the room.

And all hell broke loose.

"This is all your fault!" hissed Severus accusingly.

Sirius glared at him. "Pray tell, how is it that this whole thing is my responsibility? I seem to recall rather clearly that you tried to hex me to oblivion not two weeks ago!"

"That wouldn't have happened if you haven't tried to kill me two months ago."

"That was just a prank!" exclaimed a highly annoyed Sirius.

"Just a prank?" asked an incredulous Severus. "Changing someone's hair blue is 'just a prank'. Telling someone to go through a tunnel with a fully transformed werewolf on the other side is murder!"

"Well I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't cast sectum semper on Peter."

Severus looked extremely shocked. "That wasn't me, you idiot! That was your beloved cousin Belatrix."

Sirius opened his mouth to retort, but ended up closing them in surprise. "That wasn't you?"

Snape just shook his head in amazement. "Great, so I almost died because of something your demented cousin did. I feel loads better now, knowing my death wouldn't have been in vain," he said viciously.

"Shut up, Snivelly."

Severus, knowing he'd won, decided to ignore the name and bowed mockingly. "Whatever you say, your royal highness," he said sarcastically and moved to the bed with centaurs engraved in the wood. "I'll take this one."

Sirius, too tired to argue, just moved to the other one with engraved wolves. It was barely 9 o'clock, but since he didn't feel like dealing with Snape anymore he just decided to call it a night and closed the hangings.

Severus also sat on his bed, but he was far from sleeping. He was glad he'd learned a bit of wandless magic as he cast the silencing charm on his bed. He pulled out a book of Nordic mythology and started reading. Muggle books always amused him. They were mostly wrong about magical creatures, but they got a few right – unicorns and vampires for example. Nordic folk tales were the most accurate. He thought it might have something to do with the proximity of the pole. Magic was stronger there. Aurora borealis is enough proof of that. How muggles could believe it was all just light breaking in the atmosphere was beyond him.

He spent a few hours reading when he heard a scream from the other boy. Apparently the silencing charm didn't work as well as it should have. 'Fucking wandless magic,' thought Severus.

"Black!" he shouted from behind the hangings. When he got no reply he shouted louder. No reply. Either Sirius was a really sound sleeper, which seemed unlikely considering all the screaming he did, or the charm was partially successful and worked one way. Severus decided the second theory was right and tried to get some sleep.

Sirius was still screaming, but Severus, who'd been sharing a dorm with 5 other boys for 6 years now, was used to all sorts of sounds while he slept, so it shouldn't really present a problem for him.

But something was different about hearing Black scream. There weren't just screams, he heard mumbled words too.

"No, father stop… No, NO!"

He couldn't stand it anymore. He stood up and went to Sirius' bed.

"Black, wake up!" yelled Severus.

When that didn't work, he sighed and went to shake the other boy.

"Black!" he called as he shook him. "Wake up, it's just a dream."

After a few moments Sirius woke up. When he saw Severus standing over his hed, he immediately went to defence mode.

"What do you want, Snape?" he growled aggressively.

The Slytherin took a step back and said: "You were having a nightmare."

Sirius didn't know how to react. Was Snape actually being civilized?

"Right," he finally said after a few moments of silence. "Thanks," he added awkwardly.

Severus just nodded and moved back to his bed. Now that the room was silent, he quickly fell asleep.

Sirius, on the other hand, couldn't sleep anymore. There were too many thoughts swirling in his mind. He had to think about this situation. Indeed, it was more important then resting.

'And you're afraid the nightmares will come back, if you sleep,' reminded his mind.

He sighed and tried to decide on what to do. He obviously couldn't go flying. Playing chess required two people. He was not yet desperate enough to read. Basically, all he could do was to lie on his bed silently and think about the situation. Why, oh why wasn't Remus here? He was the thinker in their group. Sirius was too impulsive and hated analyzing things. When something happened that he didn't understand, he tried to just forget about it, or he made Remus explain it to him. But he couldn't forget what Snape had done. And Remus wasn't here with him. So it really was up to him.

'Damn Dumbledore and his plans,' thought Sirius. 'I bet he's in his office now, sitting in his comfy chair drinking tea laughing at us!'

Now about this situation. Why did Snape wake him up? Was it really out of the goodness of his heart?

'Yeah right, that wanker doesn't have a heart.'

But why then? Why? Why? Why?

'He probably just couldn't sleep cos of all the noise I was making.'

Satisfied with that explanation, he stopped thinking about it. He took a few seconds to just listen to the room. It was completely silent. Total silence really is an amazing thing to hear. Well, maybe not hear.

Then it hit him. Complete silence… He couldn't hear anything but his own breathing. Snape's bed was just a few feet from his own, yet he couldn't hear him breathe. That wasn't normal. Due to his animagi form, Sirius had better hearing then other kids at Hogwarts. Except for Remus of course. So he should be able to hear Snape breathing. The Gryffindor got out of his bed and walked over to Snape's. he still couldn't hear anything.

'Here goes nothing,' thought Sirius and opened the hangings.

Severus was sound asleep. The sheet covered only the lower half of his body and a pale torso was revealed.

'Is there something about Snivelly I don't know? Cos you don't get a six-pack like that reading books and making potions.'

With the hangings opened he could hear Snape snore lightly. Sirius chuckled and closed the hangings. And the noise was gone. Odd…

He opened the hangings again. 'Snores.'

And closed them. 'No snores.'

Opened. 'Snores.'

Closed. 'No snores.'

'Snores.'

'No snores.'

The fabric wasn't thick enough to block all of the sound.

'The bastard casted a silencing spell,' realised Sirius. 'But how did he hear me hiving nightmares?' Then another realization hit him. 'Snape can do wandless magic. Oh shit! This is definitely of the bad!'

The Gryffindor was very close to having a panic attack. He was locked in a room with his worst enemy, who was incidentally also the only one who could use magic. Well his day was getting better by the minute.

For the sake of his mental health, Sirius decided to just go to bed. Maybe he could pretend it was a nightmare and he'll wake up in his bed in the Gryffindor tower.

'Yeah, right.'

****

Breakfast was an increasingly awkward affair. Neither of the boys wanted to discuss what happened last night, but they couldn't simply ignore it. Basically it meant that they couldn't fight and since they weren't really interested in conversing with each other, there was silence. Finally Sirius couldn't take it anymore.

"I, um… I just wanted to say, um," he half stuttered and fell silent.

"Yes?" asked Severus. "Will you be finishing that thought? Or are coherent sentences too complicated for your brain cells (presuming you have some) this early in the morning?" finished Snape with mock concern.

I guess the truce is over.

"Look Snivelly, I was just trying to be polite. Is your slimy little brain too busy trying to stop the grease from penetrating it to understand the very basics of inter-human relationships?" said the annoyed youth.

Severus elegantly raised his left eyebrow. "Why Black, I never knew you were capable of using multi-syllable words. Your mother must be so proud of you."

That hit the nerve and Sirius charged immediately. He punched the Slytherin right in the nose and heard a lovely cracking sound before the blood came gushing out. Snape of course couldn't let him get away with that.

So half an hour later, they were sitting in opposite corners of the room sporting different injuries and breathing hard. If looks could kill…

Suddenly the summoning chamber opened and a letter flew in the room. It unfolded itself and Dumbledore's voice filled the room.

"Good morning, boys. I trust you slept well. I wrote this letter to inform you of some changes in your situation. The members of the staff have decided that it is not enough for you to merely ignore each other. You need to learn to live with one another. So the duration of this imprisonment has been changed. You will not be released once you learn to ignore each other, but rather at the end of summer break. This incidentally means you will be living together for 2 months."

The letter paused as there were several complaints herd from both students. When they finally grew silent (10 minutes later), it continued.

"It came to our attention that Mr. Snape is capable at using wandless magic."

The Slytherin gasped.

"Now in order for him not to have an unfair advantage we casted a spell on this room. The spell prevents you from using any kind of magic. Also, any spells you may have already casted will be lifted. Those are all the changes we made.

This will be our last correspondence. You will be left alone for the next 2 months. This also means you will get no medical assistance. You may summon bandages and such with the chamber, but potions will not be available to you. So you will have to heal the muggle way. I would advise you do nothing that would make necessary."

"Now he advises us," grumbled Severus.

"I do hope you will learn to function normally around one another. I'm sure that if you look beyond the image, you will discover more in each other then you ever thought possible," with that the letter refolded itself and burst into flames.

"Thank you, Yoda, for your words of wisdom," sighed Severus.

"What was that?" asked Sirius.

"Never mind," came the reply from the other boy as he struggled to stand up. He then half walked, half crawled to the chamber and asked for some bandages and ice. To Sirius' great surprise, he tossed half of them to him.

"Patch up," he said. "We don't want you bleeding all over the floor now, do we?"

The Gryffindor looked at him strangely and started to clumsily dress his wounds. Severus had no problems dressing his own injuries and he was now amusing himself by watching Sirius trying to figure out the basic principle of a sterile gauze. But as funny as it was, it got old quickly.

"Oh, just let me," he said with a bored voice.

Sirius looked at him with surprise clearly visible in his eyes. He handed the remaining bandages to Severus, who took care of his injuries surprisingly gently.

'Why does he keep doing this? First he wakes me up when I'm having a nightmare and now he's dressing my wounds.'

Sirius was seriously confused (no pun intended). When Snape finished and walked away, the young Black didn't know what to do.

"Thanks," he said hesitantly. Did he just thank Snape for the second time in one day? That was not normal.

"Don't worry about it," answered Severus and opened his book of Nordic legends.

Black, not knowing what to do, sat on the sofa and started drawing. Few people knew this about him, but he loved to draw and was actually quite good at it. Mostly he drew magical creatures such as elves, unicorns and centaurs.

Right now, he was working on a centaur that's been causing him troubles for a few weeks now. However he tried, he just couldn't get the legs right. It was frustrating really. Though most people would never guess thus about him, he was a perfectionist as far as his drawing was concerned. He was so immersed in it, that he didn't notice Snape eyeing him curiously.

'Sirius "I am the most badass person ever" Black draws? Nobody will ever believe me.'

Not that he had anyone to tell this too. He wasn't exactly the most popular guy in school. Partly because he was slightly asocial, but mostly cos the Marauders hated him. He still remembered the day their hatred started.

*Flashback*

Severus was sitting by the lake watching the students talk, laugh, run and generally have a good time. Since he didn't really have any friends, he spent a lot of time studying other people. From that he learned a lot about them that the others never noticed.

He saw the Marauders coming out of the school. Even though he was a Slytherin, they never really gave him any trouble in the 2 years he's been in Hogwarts.

Suddenly a pretty girl sat next to him.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked. "I noticed to always sit alone."

She noticed? She's not supposed to notice him. No one is.

"I'm Lily Evans," said the redhead and offered him a hand.

"Severus Snape," answered the boy and shook her hand.

At once the Marauders were there. James had a huge crush on Lily, everyone knew that.

"Is the Slytherin bothering you, Lily-flower?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. "No, he's not bothering me," she said and looked pointedly at him. "Unlike some people I know."

"Who's bothering you?" asked Potter. "Just tell me and I'll hex him to next week."

"I didn't know you were a masochist," drawled Severus. Lily giggled.

"What are you talking about, Snape?" asked James with a threatening voice.

"I'm sure you'll figure it our eventually," answered Snape and stood to leave. Just to infuriate Potter, he planted a kiss on Lily's hand. "I'll see you later, Lily."

While he was walking away, a curse hit him in the back.

*End flashback*

They were at war ever since. It just got worse and worse, until "the werewolf prank". And now they were here.

'What would've happened, if I turned Lily down that day?' wondered Severus. 'Would the Marauders leave me be, or would it just postpone the inevitable?'

He decided that Black would've found some reason or another to torment him. It was just the way of the world.

'Then why did I help him with his wounds?' he wondered. 'I could have left him to his own incompetence. So why didn't I?'

Because he couldn't let anyone suffer from wounds inflicted by him, that's why. Even if it was Sirius bloody Black.

"We should set some rules" said Sirius suddenly, making Severus jump.

"What?" he asked shocked.

"Rules," repeated Sirius. "If were stuck here for 2 months we can't fight anymore."

"Physically," corrected Snape. "We can still fight verbally."

Black sighed tiredly. "Has it ever occurred to you, that I might not want to fight?"

The Slytherin raised his eyebrow elegantly. "Why yes, if years of being hexed by you have thought me anything, it's that you're a true pacifist," he said sarcastically. "And has it ever occurred to you, that I might find your inability to come up with a good comeback amusing? That is, when you're not hexing me of course."

"Fine," defected Sirius. "We can fight, but not physically. Anything else?"

"We can't go through each other's stuff," added Severus. "We have to respect each other's privacy."

"Deal," said the Gryffindor and offered the other boy his hand.

Snape observed it suspiciously for a few seconds, but in the end he decided it was safe to shake it. They held each other's hands a bit tighter and perhaps a bit longer then was strictly necessary before letting go.

Sirius went back to his drawing while Severus went to have a long bath.

So... did you like it? Please let me know. The next chapter will be up as soon as i type it. The whole story is already writter so I'll post it asap.