Chapter 5: Schedule
The late summer air held the peculiar stillness that comes just before everything changes. Through the open window of the living room, the scent of dry grass and impending autumn mixed with the ever-present notes of coffee and old books. Sirius was sprawled on the rug like a large, inky panther, meticulously cleaning his tattoo machine with a focus usually reserved for surgical instruments. The soft clink of metal parts and the low mutter of French radio were the room’s only sounds. Remus sat in his armchair, marking papers with a red pen, his glasses sliding down his nose.
Draco was a ball of condensed anxiety on the sofa, his laptop hot on his thighs. His long platinum hair was tied in a messy knot on top of his head, a few strands sticking to his damp temples. His foot jiggled at a frantic, arrhythmic pace.
“It’s today,” he announced to the room, his voice tight. “The portal opens at noon. The cosmic lottery. The arbitrary allocation of my waking hours for the next nine months.”
Sirius didn’t look up from his work. “Mon chou, you make it sound like they’re sending you to the salt mines. It’s a class schedule. You’ll have time for a nap. Maybe two.”
“Naps are a structural necessity you have corrupted into a hobby, Papá,” Draco shot back, his eyes glued to the clock on his screen. “This is about flow. About creative energy. Will my Pattern Cutting lab be right after a lecture where my brain is mush? Will I have to sprint across campus in eight minutes? These are the questions that define civilizations.”
Remus made a gentle mark in a margin. “Historically, civilizations were more concerned with harvests and invading hordes. But I take your point.”
“Thirty seconds,” Draco breathed, his fingers poised over the trackpad. The jiggling foot stilled. The room seemed to hold its breath with him. Sirius finally set down a tiny screwdriver and watched, a faint smile on his stubbled face. Remus peered over his glasses.
The clock ticked over. Draco stabbed the refresh button. The page loaded, clean and bureaucratic, a grid of times and rooms and incomprehensible course codes.
He scrolled. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, his grey eyes darting across the screen. A soft, wordless sound escaped him—a high-pitched whine of pure despair. He stopped scrolling. His shoulders slumped forward as if the strings had been cut.
Then, with a sudden, violent energy, he slammed the laptop shut, shoved it aside, and buried his face in his hands. A long, muffled groan vibrated into his palms.
“Et voilà,” Sirius said, pushing himself up to sit. “The verdict is in. Life is over. Should I start digging a grave in the backyard? We could plant a tragic little rose bush.”
Draco didn’t lift his head. “Just throw me in the compost. I’m already waste.”
Remus set his papers aside. “Draco. Let’s see it.”
“No. It’s an abomination. A crime against pedagogy and common sense.”
“Darling, you haven’t even said what ‘it’ is,” Remus said, his voice the calm center of the gathering storm.
This prompted Draco to move. He uncoiled from his defeated ball, swiveled on the sofa cushion, and launched himself at Remus’s armchair. He didn’t just grab his daddy’s shoulders; he gripped them like a man clinging to a raft in a hurricane, his face inches from Remus’s, eyes wide with betrayed confusion.
“Why?” Draco demanded, his voice cracking. “Why, in the name of all that is holy and sartorially sound, do I have Medieval History 101? At 9 a.m. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays?”
A beat of silence. Sirius coughed, a sound that was blatantly a masked laugh.
Remus’s kind face remained placid, though a flicker of something—amusement, understanding, guilt—passed behind his eyes. “Well, it’s a core requirement. The Liberal Arts curriculum mandates certain credits in Historical Studies. It’s a perfectly normal course for first-year students.”
“I am a fashion major!” Draco cried, giving Remus a little shake. “My hands are for draping fabric and sketching seams, not for chronicling the papal schisms of the 14th century! I need ‘History of Textile Arts,’ or ‘20th Century Silhouette and Society.’ Not… not ‘The Crusades: Motives and Myths’! What does Godfrey of Bouillon’s haircut have to do with my understanding of bias cuts?”
“Probably nothing,” Remus admitted. “But the course isn’t about haircuts. It’s about understanding the structures of the past. Those structures influence everything, even fashion. The rise of the mercantile class, the trade routes that brought silks to Europe—”
“Don’t you dare lecture me right now!” Draco released him and fell back onto the rug beside Sirius, sprawling in a dramatic faint. “Three times a week. At 9 a.m. It’s a special kind of torture. Morning people are already sus, but morning people who want to talk about feudal land grants before coffee are actual war criminals.”
Sirius poked Draco’s toned stomach with his toe. “So change it.”
“I can’t!” Draco wailed at the ceiling. “The only other slot conflicts with Introductory Textile Sciences. It’s a choice between wool production in the Middle Ages or wool production in a lab. I’m trapped in a wool-based nightmare!”
Remus leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I think you’re overlooking a rather significant detail.”
“What? That my life is over?”
“That I teach Medieval History 101. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. At 9 a.m.”
Draco went preternaturally still. He didn’t sit up. He just turned his head on the rug, his hair fanning out like a silver pool, and stared at Remus. The betrayal in his eyes deepened into sheer, unadulterated horror.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You. You’re my 9 a.m. feudal overlord?”
“I prefer ‘guide on the side’ to ‘sage on the stage,’ but essentially, yes.”
Draco sat up so fast he got lightheaded. He swayed for a second, pointing a trembling finger at Remus. “This is a conflict of interest! This is nepotism! This is… paternalistically inflicted academia!”
“It’s a coincidence,” Remus corrected gently. “A big university, but only so many professors teach the intro surveys. Your surname is Lupin-Black on the roster. I had no idea which section you’d be placed in by the computer. It’s random.”
“Random? Random?!” Draco scrambled to his knees, turning his frantic appeal to Sirius. “Papá, do you hear this? He’s going to be my professor. He’s going to grade my essays on manorialism. I’ll have to call him ‘Professor Lupin’ in front of other people. People I might want to, I don’t know, collaborate on a quilted jacket with or something!”
Sirius’s black eyes sparkled with unrestrained delight. “Oh, c'est magnifique! This is the best thing that has ever happened. I want front row seats. Can I audit? I’ll be quiet. I’ll just sit there and watch your face while he talks about crop rotation.”
“It’s not funny!” Draco moaned, collapsing against Sirius’s side. “He’ll see me first thing in the morning. I’ll be barely conscious. My hair will be in a practical but unfashionable bun. I’ll yawn. He’ll deduct points for yawning!”
Remus finally stood up, walking over to kneel on the rug in front of his son. He put his hands on Draco’s knees. “Listen to me. Firstly, your buns are always fashionable. Secondly, this changes nothing at home. Here, I’m Daddy. In that classroom, I’m Professor Lupin. There will be rules. No special treatment. You’ll raise your hand like everyone else. You’ll address me formally in that context. Your work will be graded exactly the same as the work of the one hundred other students in that lecture hall.”
Draco looked miserable. “One hundred? I’ll be a speck. You won’t even see me yawn.”
“I will,” Remus said, a smile finally breaking through. “Because I know you’ll be in the third row, just left of center. You always sit there when you’re nervous in new situations. You did it in primary school music class.”
The specificity of the memory punctured Draco’s dramatic bubble. He blinked. “You remember that?”
“I remember everything,” Remus said softly. “And in that huge hall, knowing you’re there, one familiar face in the crowd… it might be nice for me, too. This is my first time teaching a child of mine. It’s new for both of us.”
Sirius wrapped an arm around Draco, pulling him into a sideways hug. “Think of the advantages, mon trésor. You live with the textbook. You can ask for clarification on papal schisms over meatloaf. You can have private tutoring sessions where the tutor also does your laundry.”
“The advantages are precisely the problem!” Draco argued, but the edge of panic was softening into begrudging acceptance. “It’s weird. It’s a brand new universe of weird. What if I hate the class? What if I disagree with your interpretation of Charlemagne’s economic policies? Do I have to bite my tongue at dinner?”
“I would hope you’d feel free to disagree at dinner,” Remus said, standing and offering Draco a hand up. “In fact, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t. Form a coherent argument, bring evidence. That’s the point of all this. It’s not about memorizing dates. It’s about learning to think, to argue, to see the weave of the world. Even,” he added, a twinkle in his eye, “if your particular weave is more jacquard than jute.”
Draco took the hand and let himself be pulled up. He sighed, a long, world-weary exhalation that was mostly for show. “Fine. But I’m not calling you ‘Daddy’ in class. That would be… traumatizing for everyone.”
“Agreed.”
“And if my essay is brilliant, you have to give me the A. No ‘tough love’ grading to prove a point.”
“If your essay is brilliant, it will get the A it deserves,” Remus said evenly. “If it’s mediocre, it will get a B. If it argues that the Black Death was caused by poor access to linen, it will fail.”
A real smile, small and reluctant, finally touched Draco’s lips. “Linen is breathable. It might have helped.”
Sirius got to his feet, slinging an arm around each of them. “So. We have a professor, a student, and a devastatingly handsome spectator. This calls for a celebration. Or a commiseration. The line is thin. I’m making croque-monsieurs. The answer to all of life’s academic crises is melted cheese and ham.”
As Sirius bustled off towards the kitchen, already launching into a French food critique of American bread, Draco leaned his head against Remus’s shoulder. “You won’t… you know. Mention my deep and abiding love for RuPaul’s Drag Race as a contemporary cultural analog for courtly competition? To make a point?”
Remus kissed the top of his head. “Your secrets are safe with me, student Lupin-Black. Now, go help your papá. And stop worrying. This is an adventure. A slightly bizarre, administrative adventure. Remember the hard seltzer? You handled that with military precision. You can handle a history lecture.”
“The seltzer didn’t have a final exam worth forty percent of my grade,” Draco muttered, but he disentangled himself and followed the sound of Sirius’s voice and the sizzle of butter in a pan.
Later, with the smell of toasted bread and béchamel filling the house, they ate at the cluttered kitchen table. Draco’s laptop was open again, his schedule displayed like a battlefield map.
“Okay,” he said around a mouthful of crispy, cheesy goodness. “So. Medieval History, then a sprint to Materials Studio. Tuesday: Textile Sciences, then Draping. Wednesday: History again, then Pattern Cutting…” He traced the blocks of time with a buttery finger. “It’s… a schedule. It’s my schedule. I’m going to university.”
The reality of it, the mundane grid of it, finally settled over him. The panic evaporated, leaving behind a low hum of excited terror. He looked across the table at Remus, who gave him a small, reassuring nod, and then at Sirius, who winked and stole a corner of his sandwich.
It was weird. It was theirs. And for the first time, staring at that relentless 9 a.m. block three days a week, Draco didn’t just see a requirement. He saw a connection—a strange, unprecedented thread woven between the home he knew and the vast, unknown world he was about to enter. It was a thread anchored by the man who had taught him to tie his shoes and would now teach him about the dissolution of monasteries. The juxtaposition was absurd. It was perfect.
He took another bite, and for a moment, the future didn’t feel like a looming avalanche of wool and feudal contracts. It just felt like the next thing.