_____________<br/><br/>Today had, without comparison, been the longest day yet. Harry had barely left the study for anything, much less for lunch and dinner. Both had kindly been served by Coote at their desks, and Harry had worked through both breaks, deep in old case files. It had been past midnight when he finally got up with the intent to leave.<br/>It was as if speaking his parting goodnight had underlined the fact that they had barely spoken a word to one another; Harry found that as soon as he had said one thing to Malfoy, another dozen things came up, making it hard to stop.<br/>Harry had eventually taken a seat across from Malfoy, the lounger considerably more comfortable than his own wooden chair. The case-related considerations had eventually run up, but Harry hadn’t taken his leave. For the first time in two and a half weeks, the two talked to one another.<br/>It had been an hour since Harry had said his goodnights.<br/>"At fourteen? I can barely solve a riddle<span style="font-style: italic">now</span>," he said, head reasted in his hand. Through out the passing hour, Harry had slumped further and further into the armchair, right foot bobbing lazily over his left knee.<br/>"I cheated through the entire thing," he admitted, grinning. Part of him felt certain it would only serve as material in Malfoy’s undoubtedly large archives of times Harry’d been let off easy, but Harry thought the Triwizard Tournament had been anything but easy. "I don’t even feel bad about it, I shouldn’t’ve been in it to begin with. Took a village to get me through the tasks."