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chapter forty three
a call for dinner
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When I woke up the next day, I stayed still in my bed for a minute, staring at the ceiling as I thought about the previous night. I wanted to etch every aspect of every memory into my brain forever.
I sat up after a while, letting my head lull forward. It felt heavier than usual. This always happened going out to drink with my friends—we'd stay out far too late and my sleep schedule would be messed up for days after.
At least I wasn't hungover that morning. That helped.
With a yawn, I tapped out a tablet of Modafinil from the bottle and popped it into my mouth, taking a huge sip of water while I let my eyes wander the room. They landed on one of my Draco posters. It was vintage—old enough that its colors were faded and the white paper was yellowing. It was my favorite one. Dad and I found it in London shortly after he took me to visit his old school friend Lucas's Norwegian Ridgeback sanctuary for the first time when I was six.
After admiring the poster, I fought off a grin before going downstairs. I didn't want my parents questioning if anything had happened between Draco and me. Especially my dad. He still disliked the Malfoys, and I was afraid of what he would think if he knew what had happened.
During breakfast, I told Mom and Dad about the party.
"The number of people I saw dressed as Cyndi Lauper is insane." I pushed a forkful of scrambled eggs onto my toast.
"How did Draco deal with all of that?" Dad asked. "Pureblood with little previous exposure to Muggles he is, I imagine it was overwhelming."
Mum was pretending to read the latest issue of Journal of Physics A, but I kept catching her glancing at me with a tiny, sly smile like she suspected something. It made me uneasy.
"He handled it quite well, actually," I said. "He was a bit standoffish around my friends at first, but then he got talking to Dillon about physics. Dillon even tried to explain quantum entanglement to him."
"Did he explain it well? I could have him come in to teach that concept to my quantum mechanics students," Mum said. "I seem to always manage to confuse the class with my explanations."
"I don't know how much Draco understood, but he seemed interested." I tried not to smile too wide while picturing the confusion filling his eyes.
I spent the rest of my day trying to keep my mind off of Draco. I didn't want to do anything embarrassing, like owl him too early and seem overeager.
Unfortunately, my efforts to not think about him went mostly unsuccessful.
