Rose looked around her bed one last time to be sure she hadn't forgotten to pack anything. Not that she would. She made a checklist.

"Rose." Lily called from the door. "Hurry up! We're late for breakfast."

"I'm coming." Rose closed the lid of her neatly packed trunk. "I had to make sure I didn't forget anything."

"Like your checklist would let you do that." Rose charmed her checklists to roll up and smack her on the head if she forgot anything. "You should really show Uncle George that charm. It'd be great for the shop."

"I did in August. They start selling them at the beginning of the New Year while the need to have a list of things to accomplish is still a priority for people."

"Sneaky."

"Not sneaky," Rose huffed. "It's good marketing."

"Whatever." Giggled Lily. "How's the pet snake?"

"He has a name." Rose said rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, a bloody weird one."

"His family has a tradition of naming their children after constellations-Draco, Sirius, Andromeda, and so forth."

Lily laughed at her again. "Just answer my question."

"He's fine. He's not particularly looking forward to the break because he knows he has to tell his parents. And how is Lorcan NOT a weird name?"

"He's Aunt Luna's kid, what do you expect?"

"I suppose she wouldn't name him Jerry or Bob."

"Those are normal to you?" Lily snorted.

"More normal than Lorcan." Rose shot back.

"Yes, and more normal than Scorpius. Can we just agree that our boyfriends have weird names and go to breakfast? Please?"

"Fine." Rose tossed her list on her bed and followed her auburn-haired cousin down to the Great Hall. The butterflies in Rose's stomach were going crazy. How could she tell her parents in a manner that wouldn't make them want to kill Scorpius? No matter how bad she felt though, Rose knew Scorpius would have it worse.

"Good morning, Al." Rose and Lily said as they sat down at their house table. He was sitting next to James and was stuffing his mouth full of toast.

"Geerd merffng." He swallowed. "Scorpius is still re-packing."

"Re-packing." Rose looked confused.

"Yup. At about twelve o'clock this morning he decided he did not in fact want his parents to kill him or disown him and decided he just wouldn't tell them yet. I told him to shut the hell up and go back to bed. He was severely sleep-deprived; wasn't thinking straight. Don't hold it against him."

"I won't." Rose sighed. "Why were you two up so late anyways?"

"Talking." Albus said simply. Scorpius sat down next to Rose. He had bags under his eyes and his hair was especially messy.

"Good morning." He said and he kissed her cheek. Rose started at him with a deer in the headlights expression. Hugo grew very red all the sudden.

"HOLD ON." He shouted. "BACK UP. WHAT WAS THAT?"

"Nothing." Rose said quickly.

"THAT WASN'T "NOTHING." ROSE, DAD IS GOING TO KILL YOU!"

"Do you really need to shout?" She growled.

"No." Huge glared at her. "Are you crazy?"

"No." Rose said. "I'm quite sane, and happy, by the way. So glad you're concerned about that."

"Well I'm soooo glad your life is all rainbows and butterflies," Hugo replied sarcastically. "I doubt Dad will care about that very much."

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, now shut up and eat your toast." She snapped.

Albus and Scorpius endured this particular scene of brotherly and sisterly love in silence. Albus didn't like fighting, and Scorpius was sitting there wishing a dragon would swoop down and eat him for breakfast because that'd be a lot less awkward. Rose turned back to them scowling with her cheeks red from the heat of the argument.

"Sorry about that." She mumbled. Scorpius held her hand under the table, and suddenly she didn't want to kill Hugo anymore.

How was he going to tell his parents? Send them a card maybe? From Mexico? Scorpius doubted his father would be able to find him in Mexico, or anywhere in the Americas. Portkeys aren't that expensive, there's some money in his vault that his father didn't know about, from that newspaper job he took last summer that his father didn't know about.

You know, his father wasn't THAT perceptive, maybe he could avoid telling him until they broke up, or got married. Scorpius imagined Rose walking down the aisle in a white dress and decided the second one sounded better. OR! They could run away to Mexico, get married, and THEN tell their parents. Scorpius wondered how fast it'd take Rose to shoot down that plan. 'A minute, tops,' he decided. He sighed. This plan thing was going terribly. If he didn't have one though, he'd just shout it out randomly, possibly while they were still in the vicinity of Rose and her parents and that wouldn't go well. That wouldn't go well at all.

"Scorpius, are you all right?" Rose was sitting right next to him; of course she'd notice he seemed to be arguing with himself in his head.

"I don't know how to tell them in a way that wouldn't end badly." He sighed and rested his head on her shoulder. "You're smart, can you help me?" He put on a puppy-dog face, just in case.

Rose laughed. "Just tell them you're seeing someone and that it's too early to meet them."

"They'd ask who it is."

"Don't tell them."

"But then they'd hire someone to find out who it is."

"So tell them you'll tell them later, and then find something extremely important to do that you forgot about until that moment."

Scorpius looked up at her. "That might work. You're brilliant." He kissed her.

"Aww, come on, seriously guys?" Complained Hugo. He was sitting across from them playing exploding snap with Albus. "I'm fine with you dating but I see enough of that kissing stuff with Lily and Lorcan."

"Sorry." Rose blushed, but she looked so cute that Scorpius just had to kiss her again.

"Seriously? I'm going to go find the snack cart." Hugo slammed the compartment door shut behind him.

Albus wiggled his eyebrows at the couple. "I'll just leave you two alone then." He paused dramatically. "I have some business to take care of." He swept out of the compartment and promptly ran into a third year. Scorpius and Rose could hear him apologizing through the glass, but soon ignored him.

"Have you figured out how to tell your parents yet?" Scorpius asked.

Rose sighed with frustration. "I guess I'm just going to tell them, I'll have to work up the courage though."

Scorpius smiled. "You're a Gryffindor, you'll be fine."

"I hope so." Albus walked back in.

"Your business didn't take very long." Scorpius commented. Albus wordlessly grabbed his invisibility cloak out of his bag and stepped out of the compartment again.

"I don't want to know," decided Rose. Albus was out of the compartment for almost the rest of the time and Hugo had gotten sidetracked with some friends so Rose and Scorpius spent the last few hours before their time apart very much alone with each other.

Albus burst into the compartment moments before the train pulled into the station. "Hey you two!" He was grinning goofily for some reason. "Ready for break?"

"No." They groaned simultaneously. Hugo walked in to grab his bags.

"Mom and Dad are in their usual spot," he told Rose.

"I'll be there in a few minutes." She winced. Rose was not looking forward to this winter holiday.

This chapter took FOREVER to write, but I'm pretty pleased with it! I hope you are too! Also, who else is excited for the last movie? I'm seeing it at midnight because I'm just that BAMF. We'll see how the whole telling the parents thing goes in the next few chapters XD

I'll see you back here soon, I PROMISE!

~Lavender