Then Hermione walked forward and took her place between the other two, Harry pulled the Cloak down as far as it would go, and together they turned on the spot into the crushing darkness. – DH, pg. 446

Part II: Daring, Nerve, and Chivalry

Ron drew himself up. "I've got it." He said with a confidence that was probably for his own benefit as much as Hermione's.

She didn't dare breathe as Ron tried his best to imitate the sibilant sounds of Parseltongue. The sound that came from his lips didn't sound quite like Parseltongue, but it was apparently close enough. The tap began glowing with white light, and Hermione suspected that it would have been hot to the touch. Then the sink descended out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed. The pipe was roughly the same size as the kind found at children's play parks, and she was fairly certain that Ron's broom could have been laid across its mouth.

"How deep does it go?" She couldn't help trying to work out the location of the chamber, even after learning over and over that magic wasn't bound by petty things like physical space.

"Oh, I forgot, you've never been down here, have you?"

The question was rhetorical, but she shook her head anyway. She knew that both Ron and Harry had gone down into the chamber, but Harry alone had fought the basilisk. Merlin, that felt like ages ago. Five years. She had seen pictures of herself at twelve. Six stone and wearing those blindingly white tights. The boys hadn't been much better. And yet, they had been brewing potions in bathrooms and confronting dark magic.

"It's—Well, it'll be easier with a broomstick," said Ron bracingly.

Hermione looked skeptically at the school broom in Ron's hand. "You're sure that thing can hold both of us?"

"They're not top of the line, these brooms, but they're sturdy enough to hold the two of us."

Ron climbed onto the broom and motioned for Hermione to climb on behind him. Hermione did not have a great fondness for brooms, and didn't move forward.

The broom looked like the kind of thing that belonged in Mrs. Weasley's pantry. A bundle of twigs and a thin piece of wood. And Ron expected her to just trust a flimsy piece of wood to hold her up in the air. Actually, it was worse than that. Ron expected her to trust it to hold both of them up the air.

Ron cracked a smile. "You were flying over London on the back of a dragon not six hours ago."

She hadn't much liked that either. Which he knew perfectly well, since she had spent the first twenty minutes screaming into his ear and sobbing into his robes.

Still, she was Hermione Granger. She had ridden an invisible thestral from Scotland to London, and used Buckbeak to break Sirius out of prison. And as Ron said, it had only been hours ago when she had been riding on the back of that poor dragon, gripping Ron with one hand and throwing off blasting curses with the other.

"You're sure it will hold?"

"I'm sure. You're not going to fall. And if—if you did, I'll catch you."

It sounded romantic, like the superhero catching the damsel in distress as she falls from a skyscraper. And yet, the three of them had been together for so long that swooping into save one of the other two felt like the most natural thing in the world. She knew the kinds of things that would send Ron or Harry into a free fall, and she would always be ready to swoop in and catch them.

Still, there was still the matter of her own lack of flying skills. Not to mention her ability to kill a Horcrux. Oh Merlin, the Horcrux. "But—"

"You can do this, Hermione. All of this."

Ron had a habit of allaying fears she hadn't even managed to articulate yet.

She bit her lip, but climbed awkwardly onto the end of the broom.

"It's going to be a bit of a steep drop, so just hold onto me as tight as you can, yeah?"

"Right," said Hermione. She pulled herself closer to Ron so that her cheek was resting against his now-filthy t-shirt. Her hands were clasped together and wrapped around his torso, but the fingers on her right hand were squeezed into the handle of the cup, making it difficult to hold onto Ron properly.

He chuckled slightly. His big hands were on hers, tugging her hands apart. "Hold onto my waist, Hermione."

She steeled herself for a half-moment before placing her hands just above his hip bones. The pair of them shuffled awkwardly to the edge of the hole.

"We have to jump at the same time, so I'll count to three. Ready?"

Hermione remembered dragons, hippogriffs, and thestrals. And centaurs, giants, werewolves, skrewts, trolls, and three-headed dogs. She was Hermione Jean Granger. She could do this.

"Ready."

"1."

She tightened her grip.

"2."

She closed her eyes.

"3."

She leapt.

A/N: Reviews make me a better writer.