"I Can't Let You Love Me" Chapter 6
It was quite some time before Phoebe returned to the dungeon. Torches had flickered to life in the gathering darkness by the time she made her way purposefully toward Severus' door. She knocked firmly and, when a few moments passed called out, "Don't make me use magic, Severus." When he opened the door he was paler even than he had been the night he'd returned from his Death Eater ordeal. She walked past him into the office and he silently shut the door. She turned back to face him.
"Recruit me."
"Pardon?" Severus said, completely confused.
"As a Death Eater. Recruit me. Then I'll be one of them and far less tempting as blackmail."
Snape looked horrified. "No! Absolutely not! You don't know what you're asking!"
"I've a better idea than you think and if pretending to be a stinking Death Eater is the only way, then so be it! Believe me, Severus, I can pull it off!"
"No, I can't let you."
"Will you bloody stop deciding what you can and can't 'let' me do as if I were a child!"
Snape did not rise to the bait. He just shook his head and kept looking over at her. Phoebe just watched him.
Finally he said, very calmly, "No. Besides the fact that you cannot possibly know what it entails," here he held a hand up to stop her protesting, "they would never, never buy it. They would never think I was so foolish as to risk detection by Dumbledore in approaching a member of the faculty. Never."
"We could say I came to you."
"They still wouldn't believe it. Phoebe, I'm telling you the truth! Even if I... Phoebe it would never work!"
"Alright," Phoebe replied savagely, "But it's still MY life to risk. I'd rather risk it being with you than by being so depressed without you that I feel the need to poison myself or fling myself off the astronomy tower!"
Severus looked at her with an expression of mingled wonder and disbelief. Finally he reached out to her, "To hear you say these things, to know... I never... I... But I still can't let you risk it."
Phoebe wrenched her arm from his grasp. "Severus Snape, I have no idea what the hell happened to me but I do know this: I refuse to live without you! ...You overly noble idot!"
When he spoke Severus' voice was hoarse, "Please, please, you say you love me, if you do please just go. Please."
Phoebe looked as if she'd been slapped, then turned on her heel and left.
"Well," she thought, "It wasn't for nothing I've been putting everyone but Slytherin in detention. Hopefully sonny-boy Malfoy has told his daddy all about it."
He had. She could tell by the recognition in Lucius Malfoy's eyes. Soon she was sitting across from him sneering about what a muggle loving idiot Albus Dumbledore was. After a time she settled her features into an expression of cold appraisal.
"Enough," She said shortly with a note of disgust, "I am ill suited to small talk, Malfoy. I've come to make you an offer."
Malfoy was obviously trying to keep his expression neutral but Phoebe could read a face, especially the face of a bastard like Malfoy. He was interested.
"Really," he drawled lazily, "And what would that be."
"I am prepared to help you obtain that two-faced coward who used to work for the Dark Lord but now sits sniveling at Dumbledore's feet like a dog." She spat out the last and let her lip curl in a sneer.
Malfoy was on the hook.
"By that I assume you mean...?"
"Severus F****** Bloody Snape."
"Why?"
"I want to join Lord Voldemort's service."
"Again I ask: why?"
Phoebe leaned forward and spoke, drawing on years of venom, "Because I have been weak and I have suffered at the hands of the powerful and I don't care to do so again. I thought for a time that I could be content to be neutral, but a term under the crooked nose of that weak, bustering...." Phoebe let herself trail off, then picked up her thread, "Dumbledore is an old fool and he will lose the battle to come. I would rather be on the side of the one who will triumph. I will not align myself with the weak."
A small smile curled the edge of Malfoy's lips and a small light sparked in his eye. Phoebe continued,
"I'm perfectly willing to prove my intent by delivering the turncoat to you. Oh, I know Snape was a deatheater and I know that he managed to skate into Dumbledore's good graces just before the accounts were called in for payment. I think he should pay for his disloyalty and I'm perfectly willing to collect as a sign of my good faith."
"Ah," Malfoy said silkily, "Snape supposedly isn't as far in Dumbledore's good graces as Dumbledore supposes. Our Severus had maintained his position with Dumbledore as a double agent. Didn't you know?"
He was watching her very closely. She spat. "Oh please! You can't seriously buy such a tale! If he was truly on the Dark Side why does he refuse to discuss it with anyone, even someone so clearly interested... so clearly ready to accept as myself? If I thought he was still on your side I would have gone to HIM instead of you." She scoffed.
"But then how could he be sure you weren't a spy for Dumbledore, just checking on his loyalties?" Malfoy drawled, clearly beginning to enjoy himself. That told Phoebe all she needed to know. He believed her. It was time to seal the deal.
"Come to that," Malfoy continued, "How do WE know YOU'RE not Dumbledore's spy?"
This was exactly the question. She was home free.
"Because I intend to kill the lapdog Snape for you. I hardly think Dumbledore would approve, do you?"
At this, Malfoy smiled... a cold smile with no real light in it. It was more like a grimace than a true smile.
"Very Well. I will discuss the matter with my Lord Return to Dumbledore and say nothing, do nothing, to give yourself away. We will be in touch... one way or another.
