Hermione rubbed gingerly at the side of her head. "You know," she said carefully to Tom and Evelyn, "I think we'll turn in early tonight. I'm still a bit tired from the travel this afternoon."

Ron slipped an arm around her shoulders, and added, "Never been big on portkeys, this one." Tom nodded knowingly as Ron stood up and extended a hand out to Hermione, and she took it, grateful that he'd taken the hint.

"Lovely to meet you both." Hermione gave the older couple a little wave as Ron led her away from their table, the champagne bottle held tightly in his other hand.

Back in their suite, Hermione waited while Ron quickly checked his security spells. Seemingly satisfied that everything was in order, he turned to her with concern in his eyes. "Okay?"

"I don't know," she replied honestly, picking up the bottle to examine it. "Are you worried?" She wasn't comfortable with the implication that they were under surveillance—but then again, the entire resort probably was, to an extent. She was relying heavily on Ron's instincts to tell her how she ought to feel about Berisha's cryptic message.

"No," he replied, though she sensed a but coming. "Doesn't sound as if it's anything unusual, as the honored guests of the honeymoon suite." He rolled his eyes a little at the last bit, and Hermione couldn't help but smile. "We should be careful, though."

"Weren't we already?" Hermione asked lightly, kicking off her shoes and tucking them into the closet.

"Well, right," Ron returned with a chuckle. "No need for extra caution, I don't think. I am going to run some tests on the bottle, just to be sure. And I wouldn't drink it, regardless."

"No, I assumed as much." Hermione took her pajamas from the dresser and disappeared into the bathroom to change. The dress had been a perfect choice for dinner—and Ron's reaction to it had certainly been favorable—but she was eager to get into something more comfortable. Annoyingly, though, she couldn't seem to get the zipper down. She spun her back to the mirror, trying to deduce the problem; she could reach it just fine, but it wasn't budging. Hermione huffed and walked back into the main room. Ron was bent over the bottle, muttering to himself as he waved his wand over it, looking for any cause for concern, and she watched him silently for a moment. She had loved watching him work like this, back when they were together; there was something so wonderful about seeing him excel, and at something that he truly enjoyed. It had been the same with him and chess, when they were in school.

"I'm not even starkers this time," Ron quipped suddenly, without looking at her.

Hermione frowned. "What?"

He turned his head and grinned at her. "You're staring at me again."

"Oh, rubbish," Hermione scoffed, though technically, that was exactly what she had been doing. Earlier, and at the moment. "I just didn't want to interrupt. You look very focused."

Ron smirked, but didn't argue the point. "Nothing on the bottle. It's clean." Despite his words, he stood and chucked it in the rubbish bin.

"That's a relief, then," Hermione sighed. "Could you help me with my zipper? I think it's stuck."

His lips twitched as if he was holding in some cheeky comment, before he apparently decided that wasn't necessary. "Are you asking me to undress you?"

"Merlin, you're insufferable," Hermione groaned, turning her back to him to give him access to the zipper. And so he couldn't see the blush he'd put on her face. "Zip, please."

"So demanding," he teased. She felt the warmth of him as he stepped up behind her and willed herself to stand still. It was hard not to let herself be affected by him when he was so close to her—and yes, technically, undressing her.

"I said please."

"Mm-hmm." His fingers brushed the nape of her neck as he reached for the zipper. It didn't seem to want to cooperate for him, either, as he let out a huff of breath that sent a shiver down her spine. "Sorry. Fingers are cold from the champagne," he said, thankfully misinterpreting the cause of her shudder.

"It's okay." He gave another tug, and she felt the zipper give way. He could have left it for her to finish, she supposed, but he pulled it gently all the way down until the fabric fell to either side, leaving her back fully bare.

"There," Ron said, and despite the tension she felt between them, she was surprised to hear how husky his voice sounded. "Sorted."

"Thanks." She stepped away as she turned to face him and felt the loss of contact immediately. "I'll just be a minute, then maybe we can make a plan for tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Sure. Sounds good."

Hermione went back into the bathroom and changed quickly into her leggings and the Harpies jumper Ginny had recently given her. When she returned to the main room, she was surprised to find that Ron had thrown a spare pillow and blanket over to the sofa. "Why do you have that over here?" she asked, taken aback by the sight.

"Oh." He rubbed absently at his neck. "I just thought, y'know, since we're in this big suite, there's no reason why we have to…" His eyes darted to the king-sized bed. "The sofa's fine for me."

She had gone into this knowing that they would have to act as a couple, and that that would necessarily include sleeping together. It shouldn't have been a big deal, either way, but the thought of Ron sleeping on the sofa, leaving her in the big bed alone, filled her with an inexplicable feeling of longing. "Don't be silly," she scolded him. "We're supposed to be undercover as an engaged couple."

Ron laughed lightly. "Hermione, I don't think anyone's going to be checking up on our sleeping arrangements."

"You don't know that," she replied. She was aware of how ridiculous this argument sounded, but as they said, in for a knut, in for a galleon, and she continued on. "What if housekeeping were to come in, or...or room service or something? How would it look to have the sofa made up for you?" Ron smirked but silently removed the bedding from the sofa and passed by her to return it to the bed. "Honestly, Ron, I'm just trying to make sure we keep up our cover."

He sighed, but she could tell he was fighting a smile. "Have you got any thoughts on how you want to spend the day tomorrow?" he asked, changing the subject.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but satisfied that their arrangement was intact, she dove into the conversation with him to plan for the next day. She wasn't surprised of course, when they finally tucked into bed later that night, that Ron slid under the covers beside her. The two of them automatically chose their old sides of the bed without discussion, making her heart ache with the familiarity of it, but she nearly jumped out of her skin when Ron rolled over and draped an arm across her waist. "What are you doing?" she hissed, though the weight of his arm was also comfortingly familiar and not, if she were honest, at all unpleasant.

She felt him nuzzle into her hair and whisper, "Just trying to keep up our cover, love." His breath tickled against her neck, and she inhaled deeply, willing her heart to stop racing. "Housekeeping could bust in at any moment."

He was certainly teasing her; that much was obvious. But she would have thought, after he made his joke, that he would have pulled away with that soft little chuckle of his and wished her goodnight. Instead, he had snuggled right up against her back and settled in for the night. Was he trying to make her crazy?

Her mind drifted to the swimsuit that Ginny had forced on her, the other night before dinner. The strappy one that Hermione had absolutely no intention of wearing—she wasn't even entirely sure it would properly cover all of her important bits—but that Ginny had insisted she bring because, "You never know."

Well, if Ron was intentionally trying to push the boundaries of their friendship, under the guise of the mission, then two could play that game.

His side of the bed was already empty when she woke up the next morning, and she could hear the shower running from the bathroom. Hermione padded out to the small adjacent sitting room, intent on looking over the room service menu for breakfast, only to find that Ron had beaten her to it. Most of the spread on the kitchenette table looked to be for his consumption, but he had remembered her porridge and fruit, and she picked up a chunk of strawberry with a smile.

The food was set with the appropriate warming and cooling charms, so Hermione took the opportunity to put on her swimsuit while Ron was still in the shower. It was a flimsy little thing Ginny had lent her, the important pieces held together with multiple thin straps that gave the illusion of more coverage than the suit actually provided. She stepped over to the mirrored doors of the closet to have a look at herself and adjusted the straps self-consciously. There wasn't much to it, honestly. And—she spun to the side to confirm—there was definitely a bit of her bum showing. It wasn't her style at all, but then again, she wasn't supposed to be herself.

The shower turned off, and Hermione hurriedly slipped her cover-up over her suit. She owed Ron one for spooning her last night, the cheeky git, and so she didn't want him to see what she had on until they were down at the beach. Ron emerged from the loo a few minutes later wearing nothing but a towel slung around his waist and started when he saw her. "Oh, hey, you're up. I ordered breakfast."

"I saw, thank you." Hermione flashed him a quick smile and headed for the sitting room. She couldn't stay in there with him in such a state of undress and let him catch her staring at him. Again. "I'm ready to hit the beach whenever you are," she called over her shoulder.

"Brilliant," he replied. "I'll just be a few."

When he met her in the sitting room, he was still shirtless, but at least his swimming trunks made for a less precarious situation than the towel had. He was holding a large yellow bottle of sun poition, which he held out to her as he reached for the plate of eggs. "D'you mind?" he asked. "I'll look like a tomato in five minutes if I don't put it on properly."

"Oh. Yes, of course." She took the bottle from him and popped the cap.

"I just need you to do my back, if you don't mind. I already got the rest of me."

"Sure, sure." Hermione took a deep breath and stepped behind him as he ate. Unlike his impromptu snuggling the night before, this seemed to be a legitimate request—she had seen him burn in plenty of summers past, after all—so she did her best to take it at face value. Still, the idea of touching him so intimately after all this time set her stomach fluttering.

She mentally scolded herself as she squeezed a large dollop of the potion into her hand and began to lather it into Ron's shoulders. As she had said to him yesterday, they were adults. And they were friends. She could put sun potion on his back without it meaning anything. And it clearly wasn't a big deal to him; if the roles were reversed, she knew she would have been tense and jumpy, but Ron was just calmly letting her run her hands all over him as he ate his breakfast. "All set," she said when she had finished, reaching for a nearby towel to wipe her hands on.

"Good, me too," Ron replied as he set his empty plate down. "D'you need me to do you?" Well now, that was a loaded question. Ron caught his mistake quickly, adding, "Y'know, with the potion."

"No, thank you. I put some on already." Hermione grabbed her beach bag, and Ron pulled a t-shirt on, both of them sporting identical red cheeks at Ron's blunder. "Ready to go, then?" The temperature out on the beach was sure to feel like an oasis compared to the current heat between them. Not that her scandalous choice of swimwear was really going to help in that aspect.

"Yeah, let's do it." Ron seemed equally anxious to get out of the room, as he grabbed the keys and shoved them into the pocket of his trunks without looking at her. Once out in the hall, though, he immediately took her hand, lacing their fingers together as they stepped onto the lift, and Hermione remembered with a jolt that this was all for show. They had a job to do, and they couldn't afford any distractions.

Unfortunately, avoiding distractions was already proving to be easier said than done.