Author's note: This is a gift for a friend of mine; I had intended for it to be a subtle one-shot piece, but I'm beginning to think that I may be willing to make it a multi-chaptered story (provided I can come up with enough of a plot). Opinions on that matter would be greatly appreciated, as I don't usually write non-canon pairings and want to make sure that they sound in-character (especially Snape, whom I've never written for at all).

The title and chapter heading are references to the song "Silver" sung by David Cook, which has always made me think of these two. It's a good song, so check it out if you don't know it.

Whether you choose to share your opinion or not, I hope you all enjoy it, particularly the friend it's dedicated to.

She'd been caught unaware when it happened.

From the bedroom, Hermione heard three distinctive knocks on the front door, and she froze in her packing. It had been a long time since she'd last heard those low and yet somehow reverberating taps against a door, and she'd been quite certain she would never hear them again after what had happened the previous month. Yet there they were, sounding from her parents' front door on a sunny day in the middle of July. Looking back on it later, she supposed it was the shock of the thing that made it so she left her room as though in a trance, not even thinking to take her wand from her bed.

Standing on the second floor landing, Hermione looked down just in time to see her mother move for the door. She opened her mouth, meaning to call out what was sure to sound like a paranoid warning, but it was as though those oddly familiar knocks put her in some sort of surreal dream state, and everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

She moved towards the stairs as quickly as she could, and even then it felt like she was wading through a thick marsh. Her mother grasped the doorknob, turned it, opened the door, and gave the unseen visitor a quizzical greeting. It wasn't until she heard the undertone of a dangerously smooth voice that the world began running at normal speed for Hermione, but even so she knew it was too late.

"Mum, no!" In hindsight, perhaps it wasn't the brightest thing to do, calling out a useless exclamation and alerting him to her presence before she could go get her wand. But she couldn't help it; she often panicked in a crisis, and having a Death Eater that she had, until recently, trusted implicitly unexpectedly show up on her doorstep was definitely a crisis.

A flash of red light was what incited Hermione to move, and she turned on her heels and ran for her room. She dimly thought she heard her father's voice, and was that another flash of light reflecting on the wall? Had it been red, or a dreaded green? Hermione didn't know, but she knew that she could do nothing for her parents if she didn't get to her wand before the icy fear in her gut risked immobilizing her.

She'd just passed through the threshold of her bedroom when Severus Snape Apparated a few feet in front of her, making her give out a despairing cry. She came to a stumbling halt and, somehow managing not to trip over her feet, turned around and moved for the door again. It slammed shut in her face, and twisting the doorknob proved that she was sealed in with Professor Dumbledore's murderer. The fact that she hadn't been hit with a Killing Curse yet terrified her, making her wonder what tortures were in store.

Despite her terror, she tried to grasp for all the rage and resentment she felt about Snape's betrayal as she spun around to face him. If he came to tie up loose ends and murder a Mudblood, then he was going to do it while looking her in the eye. After everything that had happened between them, he owed her that much.

A few moments of silence passed before Hermione realized that Snape's wand wasn't drawn. His cold black eyes simply regarded her dispassionately, as though she had called him here and he was waiting to see what the purpose of this visit would be. She searched his features for a hint of an arrogant smirk at having her trapped like this, standing between her and her wand, but there was no emotion on his face. She found herself wondering if his face was even capable of such a thing.

She wanted to say something haughty and proud, showing that she was strong and defiant until the end. Raising her chin a little, Hermione parted her lips slightly, meaning to declare that she'd prefer he just get this over with rather than draw it out with pointless taunts about how she'd been fighting a losing battle anyway. Harry would win this, she wanted to tell him, with or without her. And nothing Snape could do would ever change that.

Instead, what came out was a whispered, "Are my parents…?"

He seemed to consider the question before levelly declaring, "They are merely Stunned. I would gain nothing by their deaths."

"And what do you gain by killing me?"

There was a brief flash in his eyes; could it have been surprise? Resentment? "And what makes you think I intend to kill you, Miss Granger?"

Hermione let out several shuddering breaths that, if she hadn't been so sure of her impending demise or overcome by the horror of the situation, would have been scoffing laughs. "You didn't hesitate to kill Professor Dumbledore."

"I was unaware that you were in the Astronomy Tower that night," Snape replied, the barest hint of sarcasm touching his words. "Were you and Potter both hidden up there together, cataloguing my movements and analyzing my thoughts at the time?"

Hermione made no reply, though her face twisted into an ugly sort of grimace that showed she had no appreciation for her former professor's snide remarks. Several more moments passed, and Hermione tried not to be unnerved by the blank way he continued to look at her. Finally unable to hold it back anymore, she coolly asked, "What do you want, Snape?"

There was an almost imperceptible pause before he murmured, "My, my, such impropriety, Miss Granger. As your name is still listed in the Hogwarts register, wouldn't it be more fitting to call me Professor? Or, if you've read the Prophet recently, Headmaster?"

"You will never be my headmaster," she vehemently shot back. She wasn't about to confess that she, Harry, and Ron had no intention of returning to Hogwarts for their final year, although, if she were honest with herself, she wouldn't be surprised if he already knew that. "My headmaster was killed several weeks ago, and you showed your true colors that night when you spoke that horrible curse and left his body to fall and break and…."

Hermione found that her voice nearly cracked, and so she closed her eyes and looked away. She would not cry. She could be dragged off to Voldemort himself, beaten and insulted and tormented and humiliated, and she wouldn't allow herself to cry in the presence of Death Eaters. Especially not this Death Eater. "As for 'Professor,'" she finally whispered, "you gave up that mantle the very same night, in my eyes."

"And what about Severus?"

She flinched, then mentally scolded herself for her reaction. She almost thought she heard something in his low murmur, something that her mind wanted to translate as sadness or desperation, but she wouldn't allow that absurd idea to cloud her mind long enough to take root. She'd already trusted him once. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice….

Bringing forth all of her hatred and rage without touching on the more personal hurt that he was obviously testing, her eyes fastened on his as she hissed, "Severus is dead."

Later, she would wonder what he saw in those eyes. If his reaction was based on simply her words and demeanor, or if he'd used Legilimency and gotten a glimpse of the raw emotion behind those words. It was true. Severus, the man she'd known and had come to admire in a way that she never thought she'd admire a professor, was dead to her. All that was left was Snape.

He seemed to stand a little straighter, then, apparently knowing where he stood with her. "I take it your parents will be disappearing without a trace before the start of the school year?"

"You'll never find them."

"Prague."

Hermione blinked, taken aback by this knowledge. She had thought that she'd kept fairly tight-lipped about it, only mentioning it once to Ron in passing. Apparently, that was one more mention than she'd needed. "You clearly aren't the only traitor among our ranks," she said acidly.

"I was never a traitor, Miss Granger," Snape had the audacity to respond. "You claimed that I showed my true colors that night on the Astronomy Tower, but that was a falsehood. My colors were always green and silver, and you of all people should have known this."

"Don't you dare talk about 'me of all people-!'"

""The point I am trying to make is that the Dark Lord has more eyes and ears than even someone as purportedly intelligent as you has taken into account," he carried on, as though he didn't notice her outburst. "You are quite right in wanting to send them away, as they will clearly prove a weak point for you and, in effect, for Potter. Even now, death awaits them in the little cottage you've set aside for them in Prague."

A cold chill passed over Hermione at these words. So this was it. She knew that her parents would somehow be used against her, and she had no fanciful ideas that their lives would be spared regardless of whether or not she did whatever Snape directed her to do next. They were Muggles, after all, and useless. She, on the other hand, was intelligent and had a direct pipeline to the Boy Who Lived. They could overlook the fact that she was a Mudblood long enough to attempt to send her on an errand. All three Grangers were going to die either way. She only wished she'd gotten the chance to say her farewells to Harry and the Weasleys, and to apologize to her parents for not getting them out quickly enough.

Still, there was a chance that she could buy herself at least a few moments to hear Snape's proposition, and perhaps get word out to the Order before he realized that she wouldn't betray Harry. "What exactly do you propose I do to make sure that doesn't happen?"

"Don't send them to Prague."

The response was so simple that Hermione didn't know what to make of it. There had to be more to it than that, and she suddenly had the sinking sensation that he was going to tell her that her parents would be kept in a dungeon where Voldemort himself would personally make them curse bringing her into the world, unless she did as he instructed her to do. "Go on."

Snape raised a single eyebrow. "I wouldn't imagine you would want me telling you where to send them. That would defeat the purpose of hiding them, would it not?" Seeing that Hermione was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, his face took on its former blankness. "I do hope you weren't under the impression that I've come all this way in an attempt to coerce you to do our bidding lest your parents are subjected to unspeakable horrors. The Dark Lord is no fool, nor am I. I have been giving him reports on Potter and his two confidantes for years. Weasley, no doubt, can be manipulated with the proper push on his insecurities, but not nearly enough to prove useful. You, on the other hand, have no such insecurities, despite your much more impressive aptitude. You cannot be swayed or bought. Your allegiance can only be earned, and no one knows this more than I."

"Is that what you were doing?"

Once again, Snape glossed over this bitter comment. "It will not be enough to merely send your parents out of the country, as you will undoubtedly feel the need to contact them and let them know you are safe. You must get them out of Europe, preferably someplace populated enough so that they may be lost in a crowd and yet remote enough to make tracking them more trouble than it's worth. You must also completely erase the temptation to correspond with them; I suggest modifying their memories."

"Make them forget that there's a war?" Hermione incredulously asked. "So they're not on the defensive and make it that much easier to advertise their whereabouts to the wrong people?"

"Make them forget they have a daughter." The comment hung in the air for a moment, Snape taking no apparent relish in Hermione's dumbfounded expression. His following words were low, solemn, and almost sympathetic. "Their lives would be in far less jeopardy if they did not know you were part of it."

"Impossible," Hermione responded crisply, wondering why it sounded as though Snape was trying to help her. "I've never done even a basic Memory Charm in my life. Attempting to conduct something so drastic may have unspeakable consequences." In truth, she was fairly certain she could do it, if she studied memory modification charms long enough, though to what extent was anyone's guess. However, she certainly wasn't going to tell Snape this. The less he knew about her and her family, the better.

Snape studied her, his black eyes feeling as though they were boring into her very soul, searching for the truth. She'd never managed to be exceptional at Occlumency, even though she'd attempted to learn a bit the year before, and so she looked away from him, hoping to escape the worst of it by not keeping eye contact. After seeming to decide that she was telling the truth, he said, "Then I shall do it."

Shocked, Hermione stared at him as he moved to leave the room, and she instinctively backed up against the door, meaning to block his way. She knew that she was virtually defenseless without her wand, but she wasn't going to simply stand by and allow a Death Eater to brainwash her parents. "You've done enough damage."

"Stand aside, Miss Granger."

"I won't let you hurt them!"

"Move aside."

"You'll have to kill me, first!"

And her insides seemed to freeze as he glared at her for a moment before raising his wand. She tensed up, but she did not flinch. She would be proud to know that even when facing what she believed to be certain death, she held fast to her priorities and never backed down. "Petrificus Totalus."

Immediately, Hermione's body went rigid and she began to slide stiffly towards her right. Much to her surprise, Snape grabbed her about the shoulders and gently set her down on the floor. Though she could no longer see him as she instinctively tried to fight through the impossible paralysis, she could hear him unlocking her door and stepping out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

Hermione's eyes moved frantically about what little of her room she could see. Crookshanks wasn't around, and she couldn't Summon her wand while under a Full Body-Bind Curse. Straining her ears, she struggled to pick up Snape's voice from the first floor, wondering what he was doing to her parents and whether the spell could be reversed later. He didn't honestly expect her to believe that he would send her parents off somewhere safe, did he?

Much more quickly than she would have believed, Snape was back in the room and crouching before her. "You will find your mother on the living room couch," he told her, "and your father seated at the dining room table. They are in the receptive stages of a massive memory modification, which is the most difficult part of the process to get correct. In the event that you can't bring yourself to do it, I have already implanted the idea that they have no children and no intentions of starting a family at any point in the near future. You will go downstairs and you will tell each of them what their new names are, where they will be traveling, and fabricate a very thorough history for them, and you will not do anything foolish, such as use your mother's maiden name or other easily traceable information. Once you are done, you will conclude the charm, put them into a deep sleep, quickly and quietly pack the remainder of your things, and leave this place for good. You will not return, you will not make contact, you will not even think about your parents until the war is over, and only then if it has ended in your favor. I hope this has all been understood, because I don't enjoy repeating simple directives."

With that, he lifted the curse and stood, taking a step back so Hermione could collect herself. Not liking the idea of lying by his feet, she hastily made her way up, brushing herself off as she gaped at him. "What did you really do to them?"

Snape stared at her for some time before replying, "Miss Granger, whatever you might think of me now, you should know quite well that I don't have a use for-"

"Stop telling me what I should know!"

She hadn't meant for the words to come out, and she certainly hadn't intended for them to be yelled at the top of her lungs. Apparently, Snape hadn't anticipated such a reaction either, as he blinked at her in shock.

"Two months ago, I knew I trusted you," she told him, no longer able to keep back the pain. "I knew that you were a good man, a misunderstood man, and I knew that I was getting along better with you than I was my two best friends. I knew that you respected me every bit as much as I respected you, and I knew that you, like the rest of the Order, would willingly die for Dumbledore or for Harry if it became necessary. So don't you dare stand there and tell me about what I should know about you after what you've done. I know nothing, and after everything that's happened, I don't care to know."

Hermione stood there, her hands clenched into fists at her sides to help minimize the shaking. The world started wavering in front of her, and she knew that tears were threatening to fall, and she reminded herself of her vow to never shed a tear in front of a Death Eater. Especially, as her mind continued to relay, this Death Eater.

At length, Snape took a single step towards her, his face still an unreadable mask. Hermione took pride in the fact that she hadn't flinched or retreated. He was still standing between her and her wand; he still had the significant advantage.

"We both seem to have gotten in over our heads, Hermione."

It all happened so quickly that Hermione would need to replay it several times in her mind before she got the sequence of events right. First came the quiet, almost mournful words, then came the impression that he seemed to actually be showing a sign of remorse. And then came her name. Her given name, leaving his lips. After what he'd done to Dumbledore, to the Order, to her, he had the gall to refer to her as a peer. There was a brief pause, then, an interlude during which she was sure her intent was clear and he could have stopped her, if he so wished. Instead, he merely stood there as the palm of her hand firmly connected with his face, leaving an angry red handprint against his pallid complexion.

He stared at her as dispassionately as ever, watching her breathe hard with resentment and loathing and shock and terror. She knew he could see the fear in her eyes, she knew that he could see her wondering if she'd be able to push past him fast enough to get to her wand and defend herself from some retaliation, and she knew that he was quite as aware as she was that he could kill her with a lazy flick of his wand before she even built up the momentum to dive for her bed. And so, for what felt like the hundredth time since she first heard his distinctive knocking upon her front door, Hermione Granger waited patiently for death.

But death did not visit her that day; Severus Snape merely turned on the spot and Disapparated, leaving her with a strange feeling of relief and regret.