Draco shakes his head before taking a sip of his tea. Pausing to consider all of it, eyes bright as he shrugs. "Being a smart arse about the boy I was. Who wasn't at all bright," he says, though in truth it was less about his intelligence and more about a corner his family had painted him into. He had been brilliant, but he had been a pawn as well.

But then both of them had, and they're still working through that and trying to figure it out between them.

"I... There's a lot of things I had no choice but to do and fighting it could have gotten very bad. When I had a choice in it, I did what I could. Like ensuring you didn't use the cloak to follow the others from the train and have them realize you were there. They set wards the entire path and they would have found you,' he says. He had been cruel about it but he'd also been protecting Harry in the long run.

"And Hermione is as well," he says with a nod, explaining the note's appearance.

I felt the nightmare, and I'm worried for you. Did the wards hold? Are you all right?

I'll be home as soon as I can, by tea time tomorrow at the latest. If you need me, send the owl back immediately and I'll take the chances of leaving early.

- Hermione.