Ron's heart was suddenly thundering in his chest. "I beg your pardon?" The words slipped out even though he realized they were pointless to say, other than as a stall tactic. Hermione was tense beside him but neither of them moved. To their knowledge, Berisha had done nothing but invite them to dinner; Ron needed more before he could take action.

Berisha held his hands out in front of him. "Please. Let us not get bogged down by pretense. I understand your concern for confidentiality, Mr. Weasley, and I assure you, my staff is exercising the utmost discretion regarding your stay."

Ron wasn't quite sure how to respond to that; what did that have to do with whatever illicit activity Berisha was plotting? To his surprise though, Hermione took a small step forward. "That's very kind of you, Alfie," she said sweetly. "It can be so hard for Ron and me to enjoy any privacy, even when we travel."

"Certainly, Ms. Granger," Berisha replied with a respectful nod to her. "Please, let us sit."

Knowing now that their cover had been for naught, Ron wasn't keen to eat or drink anything that had been prepared for them, but he wasn't sure they had much choice in the matter. Hermione's current strategy, though, seemed to be to just go with it, and as his partner, he had to back her up. He pulled out a chair for her and she turned her head to give him a grateful smile, but her eyes were serious as they met his.

Ron took the seat beside Hermione and gave her leg only a quick squeeze before pulling his hand back, keeping it free to reach for his wand if needed. "I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised when you asked us to meet with you," Ron began. Hopefully, if he could get Berisha talking, they could get to the bottom of what he was doing.

"Ah, but surely not?" Berisha exclaimed. He pulled out his wand, and Ron's hand instinctively twitched toward his own, but Berisha only used it to levitate over several of the heaping dishes from the serving tables before slipping it back into his coat pocket. "An intelligent couple such as yourselves must assuredly be involved in many productive business ventures."

"We are certainly open to the idea," Hermione replied slowly, "but we've not really encountered anything that suits our interests."

"Ah. Well, I am positive that will not be the case with what I am offering."

Ron sat forward in his seat as Hermione delicately reached for a ladle, serving herself a hearty looking stew. "And, what is it you're offering?" he asked.

Berisha spread his arms wide to indicate the room around them. "The Golden Sphinx, of course."

"You're looking for investors in the resort?" Hermione looked at Ron only briefly before returning her attention to their host, but he could tell just from that glance that this evening wasn't going as she had expected, either.

"Certainly, Ms. Granger." Berisha motioned for Ron to take some food as well, and he obliged, albeit reluctantly. "It is my intent to open a second location, ideally in the south of France."

"How exciting!" Hermione said enthusiastically. "It's beautiful in that part of the country."

"Indeed." Berisha took some of the stew for himself as well, which eased some of Ron's anxiety, but the idea that the man seated across from them had known their true identities the entire time still had him on edge. "I have a location in my sights, but quite unfortunately, I lack the funds to make the purchase at present. The owner of the property is an old friend of mine, so he has been holding off other buyers, but there is much interest. I fear that in another month, I may have lost the opportunity."

"So soon?" Ron questioned, though in his mind, the pieces were coming together; Berisha had said in the boathouse that he was running out of time. Was all of this really about opening another hotel?

"Regrettably, yes."

The three of them ate in silence for a few minutes, Ron and Hermione stealing glances at each other. Berisha didn't seem to notice; he wasn't exhibiting a hyper-awareness for his own security, or any other signs Ron would expect from a man like him. Berisha was either completely comfortable with whatever he was plotting, or there was nothing criminal being plotted at all. "Do you have many other investors?" Ron asked finally.

"Ah, yes, but they don't all...play well with others, I believe would be a suitable description."

"How do you mean?"

"Many old wizarding families come from money, Ms. Granger, as I'm sure you're aware. Many of those same people have had some...regrettable affiliations in the past." It wasn't an outright admission that he was dealing with Death Eaters, but it was still more open than Ron would have thought Berisha would be about the people he was involved with.

"You can understand how that might be a conflict of interest for someone like us," Ron replied, keeping his tone diplomatic, though inside, his head was spinning.

Berisha nodded in understanding. "I do. But I am a businessman, Mr. Weasley. As crude as it may sound, I go where the money is." He shrugged unapologetically. "Of course, I appreciate your position. I don't expect the two of you to unquestioningly turn the same blind eye as I do to some of my associates' pasts."

"Pasts?" Hermione repeated with a skeptical quirk of her eyebrow.

"Oh, yes. I am not interested in anything untoward. There is no money coming from Azkaban, after all."

Hermione eased her posture, though Ron could tell that, like him, she was anything but relaxed. "Perhaps you could give us some figures, then?" she suggested. "On the proposed investment as well as the potential returns?"

Berisha gave another nod. "It would be my pleasure."

Berisha spent the remainder of the meal inundating them with numbers: the cost of the property, his expected profits at the new location, even the exchange rate between galleons and French baguettes d'or. There wasn't a single question Ron and Hermione threw at him regarding the operation's finances that he didn't have an answer to. Ron wasn't sure if Berisha's thoroughness made him more or less skeptical of everything, but he was anxious to get back to their suite and decide on their next move.

When they finally bade Berisha a goodnight, promising to consider the information he had given them, it was all Ron could do to keep from full-on sprinting back to the privacy of their room—for whatever it was really worth—and dragging Hermione in his wake. The lift seemed to take forever, and once they were back in the suite, Hermione waited anxiously while Ron double- and triple-checked all of his security spells. He had already lacked faith in the existing privacy of the room, and now knowing that they had never truly been undercover at all, he was taking extra precautions. Which included the pair of small, candy-like chews that he dug out from his bag, pressing one into Hermione's shaking hand. "Eat this," he instructed gently before twisting the purple wrapper off his own.

Hermione obliged immediately but asked, "What is it?"

"It's made from bezoar extract," Ron replied. Hermione looked up at him with wide eyes, her mouth full of the chewy substance; it might have been a comical look under different circumstances.

She swallowed heavily before asking, "Do you think—"

"No," he said firmly, squeezing her hand. "No, I don't think. But better safe than sorry."

She nodded and slipped her hand from his, twisting the wrapper between her fingers. "Why haven't I ever heard of these?" she asked curiously. Ron was anxious to get down to business, but it was obvious Hermione needed a moment, so he allowed himself to distract her.

"They're George's. He modeled them after the Ton-Tongue Toffees."

"And they're Ministry-approved?"

"Standard Auror issue, these days."

"Really?" Ron nodded. "And it's as effective as a real bezoar?"

"For nearly anything, yeah." Hermione looked down as she kicked her heels off, dropping her several more inches below Ron's eye line. "You alright?"

Hermione shrugged. "I suppose. Do you think he's telling the truth? Do you think that's really all he's doing, is trying to grow his brand?"

Ron sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair. "I dunno what to think. It explains a lot: the shady characters, the international interest. He's known who we are the whole time, but he doesn't seem concerned by it."

"He doesn't believe you're here as an Auror," Hermione agreed with a nod. "He thinks you're just a man here on vacation with his...fiancée." She spun the ring around on her finger before she slipped it off and dropped it to the bedside table with a clatter. "So...what now? You said you could end the mission at any time."

"I can. And I will, if that's what you want?"

"It's not about what I want." Hermione turned her back to him and pulled her hair over her shoulder, exposing the back of her dress. Wordlessly, Ron reached out and pulled the zipper down for her, and she gave him a soft smile of thanks as she stepped out of the dress, tossing it onto the luggage rack nearby. "If it weren't for me being here, what would you do? What's the strategy?"

Ron felt as if he should feel guilty, watching her change after their spat before dinner, but she was stripping down right in front of him, mid-conversation, and what was a bloke supposed to do? "Well," he said slowly, "it doesn't seem that we're in immediate danger. But we obviously don't have a reliable cover, either. Even if Berisha is up to something, we're not going to find it. We pull out early, and we raise suspicion; it'll make it harder for another team to come back, if necessary."

"So we just...stay here? Another week, like we planned?"

Ron tried to ignore the obvious discomfort in Hermione's question. It was, after all, an unfortunate situation they had found themselves in; surely the idea of spending another week with him wasn't so terrible, in and of itself. "I can contact Harry and request a non-emergency extraction. It'll be two or three days, tops."

"What does that mean?"

"Basically it's just Harry making up a bullshit reason for us to leave—somebody's in the hospital, work emergency, whatever—and sending word via the resort. It's creating a paper trail, instead of us just checking out early for no reason."

Hermione frowned thoughtfully. "What's an emergency extraction?"

Ron laughed. "More or less, it'd be Harry and half the Auror Department bursting in here, wands firing."

Hermione chuckled as well as she buttoned her pajama top. "I don't think our evening warrants one of those."

"And…" Ron placed a tentative hand on her forearm, his thumb brushing gently against her bare skin. "What about our afternoon?"

He was pleased when she took a step closer to him, and her voice was soft as she responded with a slight eye roll, "No, Ron, I don't need the entire Auror Department to rescue me from you."

"Half the Auror Department," he corrected with a smile.

"That either." She took another step so that she could snake her arms around his waist, tucking her head under his chin. "I'm sorry about earlier."

Ron wrapped his arms around her in return, holding her close. "You know I just told that story for the cover, right? It's not like I was actually proposing."

"It wasn't just a story, though," Hermione mumbled into his chest. He shook his head against hers, and she pulled back slightly to look at him, not breaking their embrace. "How close were you? Back then?"

Ron wasn't sure what she wanted to hear, but he figured he couldn't go wrong with the truth. "It was...just a thought, I suppose. I didn't have...y'know, a ring or anything. We never talked about it, like you said."

Hermione nodded as one of her hands slid around to his front and trailed up his chest to land on his cheek. "I can't lose you, Ron," she whispered. "I can't."

"Hey." Ron covered her hand with his own, using the other to press her closer to him. "You're not going to lose me, Hermione. You could never."

She sighed. "You say that, but...we couldn't stand each other half the time by the time we broke up. That's why we broke up. Before it got worse."

"I know that. But it's been two years, and here we are again. Do you really want to ignore that?" Hermione looked conflicted as she peered up at him. "Look, we don't have to figure it all out right now. Especially not right now; I know tonight was a bit of a shock. And I don't expect things to go right back to how they were. It's going to take time, if that's what you want. Can we just agree for now that we still very much enjoy having sex with each other and go from there?"

Hermione laughed, and he knew he had relaxed her, at least for now. "I dunno…" she began as she stepped out of his arms. There was a lightness to her tone that calmed him, even though he had no idea where she was going with this. "You did let me put my clothes back on, so I may need some convincing on your feelings."

"Wha—just now?" Ron exclaimed. Hermione was watching him with a cheeky grin as she slowly backed toward the bed. "You were bloody pissed at me, and—" He cut himself off as she held a hand out to him in invitation, letting his lips curl into a smirk. "Convincing, huh?" She bit her lip and nodded, and it was all he needed to sweep her into his arms and tackle her to the bed, both of them laughing until their lips met for a heated kiss.