When Draco received the news of his father's escape from Azkaban prison, he was positively thrilled. There were no other words for it; he felt such an overwhelming surge of happiness. Nothing had been the same since Potter had put his father away last year.

His mother had fallen into a deep, almost maddening depression. It wasn't so much as the muffled crying at night that bothered him, than it was her absolute personality change. Whenever Draco drew near to speaking about his father, she scolded him for disrespecting his honor. A fair few times she had waved him off, saying that she needed to hurry and get arranged to go to a dinner party. She was often gone because of those attendances, so Draco took advantage of the time he had alone. Not even house elves occupied the house anymore. He spent nights in the library, reading up on curses, hexes, and spells that might aid him later. He made sure he knew everything about Potions and the Dark Arts, and often assigned himself homework on the days he didn't do anything remotely important during the summer. Work had become time consuming; leisure time had disappeared along with his father. No one was here to spoil him like he always used to be.

Draco checked the Daily Prophet every day, in search of news about Azkaban. Most importantly, it was to catch some news of his father. It became a routine during breakfast, where he sat alone, eating a bowl of usually cold porridge. And even though the routine had gotten tiring, and there was never any good news, Draco still kept at it. Somehow he knew that something would end up happening.

It happened the week before school started. It was to be Draco's seventh year at Hogwarts, and he was looking whole-heartedly forward to leaving the awful place. He'd gone down to breakfast, just like any other day, distractedly mixed together a bowl of his meager breakfast, and sat down at the table with the day's Daily Prophet.

One of his thin, pale fingers ran across the lines of the first few paragraphs. At each word beginning with a capital 'L,' his eyes paused and his breathing caught in his throat, the same as every other day. But today, he stopped longer than normal, his mind trying to comprehend if what he was seeing was actually there.

Lucius...

Lucius Malfoy...

... He is among several of the Death Eaters that escaped from Azkaban early this morning... is still being searched for...

It was on the front page; the top news of the wizarding world. Pictures of the seven Death Eaters, including his father, were placed in a small box at the corner of the page. Draco, having been halfway through with chewing a spoonful of porridge, nearly choked.

That's when he jumped up from the table, not even bothering with the rest of his food. He was deciding on what to do. His breathing seemed to have quickened this time, as if it were a replacement for bursting out with suppressed laughter. This was wonderful. He had to let his mother know! She was probably at another one of those parties, even at such an early time.

With the newspaper still clutched in his hand, he ran up the staircase and into his room to retrieve a piece of parchment and quill. His hands were shaking as he searched around for those things; his gaze was determined. After a minute or more of rushed fumbling, he finally laid out a sheet of new parchment on the surface of his desk. The newspaper was set beside it.

Suddenly, something swept past him, earning him a startled jump. His head whipped around to look for the source, and he saw a large black owl with silver talons perched on his dresser. A small, beaten piece of parchment was attached to its leg. Draco watched it for a few more moments before he slowly made his way toward it. It gave an impatient ruffling of its feathers.

"Hello there..." Draco whispered tentatively. He reached an arm over to untie the note from the dangerous looking leg. It didn't try to stop him. Once the note was pulled away from it, the owl spread out its wings and soared back out through the window. Draco had quickly moved to the side to let it leave, and then looked curiously down at the parchment. For that moment he forgot all about the note to his mother.

He opened it to reveal thick, scrawny lettering.

Draco,

Leaky Cauldron. Room 14. Don't bring your mother.

L.

The minute he had finished reading, he quickly shoved the note into his pants pocket and rushed over to his wardrobe to grab his cloak and scarf.

He didn't need to pause to think of whom the note was from, and he knew that if he didn't leave now, he wouldn't get there until evening. No one was here to take him all the way down to muggle London, so he'd have to fly there.

Once he was ready and standing out in the back garden, he stood there for a few more minutes, looking up at the sky. As strange as this was, he had to think. This all seemed to be happening awfully fast. Just a half hour ago, it seemed, he'd been eating breakfast like all the days before. Now he was standing with his broom in hand, ready to fly off and meet his father, who'd been locked away for an entire year. And Draco had no regrets or worries; he was actually quite ecstatic.

Grinning, Draco pushed up from the ground and zoomed off into the air.