Albus dragged me to the library behind him. I was hesitant – Rose was more than likely pissed at me, I would be if I was her, and I was still a little upset with her about what she did. I can't blame her though, it's not her fault. Whether she told the Aurors about my father or not, they would have found out. I sighed when we arrived at the door to the library. Albus strolled in casually and I followed him reluctantly behind.

"Told you." He said smugly as he pointed over to Rose who sat on her own at a desk between two aisles of books. He walked over to her and I followed still. "Afternoon, Rosie." He said, sitting down next to her. I stayed behind and stood at the end of the bookshelves, my arms folded across my chest as I leaned against the shelf, watching them.

"...Hi." She said, looking between Albus and myself. "What're you doing?" She asked, closing her book and pushing it to the side. Albus grabbed the book and looked at it, reading the title. I couldn't see it properly from where I was standing.

"Oh, don't worry about that." He said, tossing the book to the side. Rose tried to reach for it, annoyed. "No, seriously. He has the stone. Turns out dad didn't destroy it or something." He said like it was no big deal. He turned to look over his shoulder at me and I was just sat there looking at him, bewildered.

"Hold on, you've got the stone?" Rose said, looking at me. "But when did you-"

"Dad gave it to him this morning." Albus said before I had a chance to say anything. "He saw his mum, turns out he's had a pretty intense morning and that's exactly why we're here." He explained, standing up and walking toward me, grabbing me by the arm and dragging me over to Rose. He pushed me so I was now sitting down in the chair he was just in. "That's why he was such an arsehole." He said and I glared at him.

"Dude!" I exclaimed.

"Listen. As gross as I find the whole you two shagging thing-"

"We've not-" I started.

"We've never-" Rose said at the same time.

"I haven't seen either of you as happy as you have been since you've been together." Albus said, ignoring our protests. "A lot of crap has happened these last few months and you two have been together through it all. So Rose, you apologise for betraying Scorpius's trust, Scorpius you apologise for being an arse and then you can kiss, make up and we can come up with a plan for what's going to go down with the Aurors and your messed up dad." He rambled. I scowled at him for the last part but at the end of the day, he was right.

"What do you mean, what's going to go down?" Rose asked. She looked very confused.

"I'll leave you to explain that, mate." Albus said, patting my shoulder. "Now, Violet is sitting over there..." He said, gesturing down the aisles. "So I'm going to go annoy her for a bit while you two talk. Come get me when you're done, then we can come up with a plan." He said, and walked away.

"What's he talking about?" Rose asked. I took her hand in mine and held it tight.

"Before I get into that I just want to say sorry. It was... wrong of me to take out my anger and like... everything else I was feeling on you. I was just..." I sighed. "Seeing my mother was... intense. I told her I wanted to try help my father and she told me he was too far gone and then she told me she loved me and she missed me and she said I was brave and-" I stopped, wiping my eyes as I felt them welling up. Rose took me in her arms and I buried my face in her shoulder. "I'm sorry." I mumbled, pulling away from her embrace and looking at her.

Rose wiped the tears from my eyes. "I'm sorry too. You trusted me and I went behind your back. I thought I was doing what was best, I thought that... I wanted you to trust the Aurors because they know what they're doing – they can save everyone from what's happening and I can't. I'd prefer you to stay faithful to them than to me, I don't want you losing sight of the amazing brave boy I love. You've lost so much but you've done everything you can to fight them." She said.

"My mother said that to me..." I said quietly as I held her hand which was still rested on my cheek and intertwined our fingers. "She told me I couldn't lose sight of what was important, that I needed to stay true to myself." I told her.

We looked into each other's eyes. We both looked so sad and tired. It was so hard, and fighting with Rose was just too much to deal with on top of everything else. I placed my palm against the side of her neck and I pressed my lips against hers. She kissed me back and I ran my fingers through the strands of her loosely curled hair. We pulled apart after a few seconds and breathed deeply, I felt her warm breath against my lips as we stared at one another.

"I need you in my life." I admitted. "And you're right... what you said earlier. I may have lost my mother and my father and everyone else in my life, but I have you, and I have Albus. You're all I need." I said and she kissed me again, a little more passionately this time. As we kissed, I pushed my chair closer to hers so we could be as close to each other as possible. She pulled away from me this time and looked at me. Taking a breath, she smiled.

"So... what was this about a plan?" She asked, breathlessly. I smiled at her weakly.

"I have the resurrection stone." I told her quietly, to make sure no one heard. Pulling it out of my pocket, I placed it on the table in front of her and she looked at it like Albus did when I showed him, in amazement. "The Aurors want to take it, and deal with it their own way, but my vow said I have to take it to my father when I find it, which I'm doing tonight." I explained.

Rose nodded as I spoke, not taking her eyes off of the stone. She held it in her hand and inspected it. "I can't do it alone though, and the Aurors need to be there to protect me because once I give the stone over, if I do that is, I don't know what they have planned. I know what they want to do with it, but I can't predict that they'll not put me under an Imperius curse again or even just kill me right there. And as you're aware, if your parents or your uncle come up with any type of plan that I hear about, I have to tell my father, which means as a loophole kind of thing, I have to come up with my own plan that they have to agree with. If they don't do what I say to the letter, then they're making their own plans and when I arrive to see my father tonight I have to tell him they're there... does that makes sense?"

Rose looked at me, a little sceptical. "Sort of. You have to take the stone to your father and you have to tell him about any Auror plans, so they have to do exactly as you say because if they don't, you'll have to tell your father that they're with you and it ruins the whole thing..." She repeated and I nodded.

"Cool. Just one small problem – I have no idea what to do. We're meeting the Aurors at midnight so we have about 11 hours to come up with a solid plan that will keep everyone safe and the Aurors will be on board with." I said.

"Wait, we're meeting them?"

"You didn't think I was going to do this without my girlfriend, did you?" I asked and Rose smiled at me.

I grabbed the stone from the table in front of her, much to her dismay, and put it back in my pocket. I stood up, grabbed her hand and pulled her alongside me as I walked over to Albus who was with Violet.

"Come on, Al'." I said, patting him on the back. "Violet." I nodded with a small smile.

"Malfoy." She replied. "Take him away, please, he's being ultra-annoying today." She groaned. I pulled Albus out of his chair and he, Rose and I all walked out of the library.

"She wants me." Albus said, and Rose and I both rolled our eyes in unison.

"We have work to do." I said, confidently as I walked between the two of them. I put each of my arms around their shoulders and Rose leaned into me a little as we walked – Albus looked at me like I was crazy. I had a good feeling about this.