Work Text:
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
--Richard Siken, "Scheherazade"
Year 7
Two years after the Second Great Wizarding War, Hogwarts begins to rebuild.
In the first Yule Ball after the fall of Blackbeard, the castle shines in magic lanterns, glimmering tinsel, and holly-speckled pine wreathes. The gloom and grief which had weighed so heavily on the school’s shoulders surrenders its death grip on the community, just for a moment.
Couples whirl across the floor in waltzes and foxtrots and something in between. Noland’s ghost riffs across the piano, a soft sultry tune that toes the line between romantic and celebratory. While student enrollment hasn’t yet completely recovered, the jovial tune accompanies laughter and warmth that resembles Hogwarts in its glory days.
The Hogwarts that Sanji fell in love with.
“A Knut for your thoughts?” Nami asks, slipping her hand around Sanji’s arm. He starts, then the tension bleeds out of his shoulders.
“ Mellorine, ” he greets. “Don’t tell me you’ve gotten tired of your countless suitors?”
Nami flaps a hand in the general direction of the dance floor. “They’re fine, I guess. But honestly, once you’ve spent a summer hunting down Horcruxes and trying to kill the Dark Lord, the bar gets raised pretty high.”
“They’re lining up the corner.” Sanji eyes the five men hovering in the backdrop, trying to surreptitiously hide their glances in Nami’s direction. “Surely you’ll take pity on a couple of them?”
“They can wait their damn turn, just like everyone else.” Nami wrinkles her nose. Her orange ballgown sparkles with tangerine sunstones that catch the candlelight just right. In another world, Sanji might have been as smitten with her as so many other students are. In this world, he’s a bit more unlucky.
He loosens his arm so she can grasp it more comfortably and guides her to the dance floor. “And you’ve graciously allowed me to cut the line? I’m honored.”
“I don’t provide acts of charity like this regularly.” Nami smiles winningly, nearly enough to mask the gleam in her eyes. She follows Sanji’s gaze onto the dance floor, where the mosaic tiles have begun to rearrange themselves into snowflakes, following the pairs like a spotlight. “Zoro looks nice. His formal robes don’t look all that bad on him.”
Several years ago, Sanji would have sputtered out a denial, told Nami she was out of her mind. These days, he’s five years older, and five decades wiser. That’s the thing about war, it tends to age children, especially those it deems war heroes. In the privacy of his confidant, he allows himself a painful concession: “I guess he does.”
In truth, no one expected Roronoa Zoro to return to Hogwarts a year after the war. Luffy didn’t, but that was to be expected—why would the Savior of the Wizarding World go back to school? Somehow, Sanji assumed that Zoro would follow Luffy’s lead, that at least one of the famous Romance Dawn trio would leave with Luffy, but he’d been wrong.
Even when they were younger, Sanji could never make heads or tails of what was going on in Zoro’s brain.
Zoro spins Perona on the floor with startling ease. His Slytherin-green necktie hangs askew from his neck, and his lone silver eye glints in the warm orange candlelight. Sanji’s mouth goes familiarly dry.
In that second, Zoro meets Sanji’s gaze. Sanji’s neck cracks as he jerks his head to the side, feeling the tingle of his blood rising to his face.
“Ahem,” Nami says, pulling him gently to the dance floor. “Are you going to ask me to dance with you or are you going to keep staring at Perona and Zoro?”
“I—” Defeated, he amends, “Would you do me the honor of dancing with me, mellorine? ”
“Sure, since you asked so nicely.” Nami’s hand is a reassuring weight on his shoulder. “Relax. I don’t bite.” She squeezes his arm reassuringly. “Did I tell you about the new Divination class? They’ve started talking about the impacts of—”
Year 0
“—dreaming. As if someone as stupid as you would be accepted into Hogwarts,” Niji sneers. “And if you do, you’ll be a Puff. A fucking Puff. Merlin, I’d rather kill myself.”
Sanji, who in five years time will be a Hufflepuff Prefect, stares blankly at Niji. The two brothers are standing in the middle of Diagon Alley, outside of Flourish and Blotts. It’s a Vinsmoke tradition for the latest Hogwart acceptee to take the next youngest with them on their first-year shopping spree because Judge despises many things, and one of those is mingling with witches and wizards with an iota of muggle blood.
Once upon a time, Reiju might have volunteered to take Sanji instead of Niji, but two days ago, Reiju had chucked a mirror at him in an attempt to get him out of her room. It missed him completely, but she had been on her third Invigoration Draught on top of five cups of black tea, and losing a considerable amount of weight.
“I’m sorry,” she said miserably. “I just—it’s this accelerated OWLs program that I’m a part of. It’s driving me crazy. Are you alright, Sanji?”
Reiju is the second Vinsmoke to ever apologize to Sanji. The first was his mother, as she lay dying. For this similarity, he loves Reiju, much like a dog might love his owner because she does not kick him. That said, beyond that, they are all just acquaintances living under the same roof.
Still, the time where he considered Reiju an older sister, where he might have asked her about how to resolve a fight with Ichiji, or how to hide a broken dish from Judge, has long passed. Sanji has thought of himself as an only child for a while now. In a sense, all the Vinsmoke children are only children, each an individual tale of durability and adaptation under a dictator’s rule.
Niji shoulder checks him, and Sanji doesn’t make a sound. This is his own rule of survival—to make yourself as small as possible. His act of rebellion is to refuse to give Niji the reaction he wants. Niji scoffs. “Whatever. Just pretend you don’t know me if you make it to your first year.”
Niji marches on into Madame Malkin’s, shoving his way through a crowd that’s gathered in front of Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour. As Sanji struggles to keep up, he catches snippets of conversation floating in the tightly packed congregation of witches and wizards.
“There’s no way,” someone mutters. “Is that—”
“Well, that’s the scar under his eye, init?” a women rebukes. “Merlin, I never thought I’d see him in the flesh.”
He cranes his head to see who everyone is busy gawking at, but Niji is getting further and further away, and people are bumping into him at astonishing rates.
With one final shove, he manages to break free of the gaggling throng, tries one final time to look back at the ice cream parlour, before sprinting toward Madame Malkin’s.
He does not notice the pair of silver eyes watching him disappear into the crowd.
“Whatchya looking at, Zoro?” Luffy asks him, oblivious to the attention that he’s garnered just from existing. Zoro hums.
“Nothing in particular,” he says, plucking the red-bean rum ice cream cone from one of Luffy’s clenched fists. At twelve, Zoro already carries the dreams of two people on his back, and treats ambition like an old trusted wand. There are many things that he finds boring, and a few select things that catch his attention.
A flash of blonde hair. Cerulean eyes.
Zoro leans back in his chair and takes a bite of his ice cream. “Just thought I saw someone—"
Year 7
“—interesting, is all. Honestly, I’ve got to ask: why the fuck haven’t you two been able to pull you heads out of your asses?”
“Huh?” Sanji spins Nami around, and as the orchestra swells to a final crescendo, He bows. She curtsies. “I—” He reruns the last dredges of the conversation, and comes up blank. “What?”
Nami loops his arm around his, half-dragging him to the refreshments. The look she fixes him with reminds him of Kureha whenever Sanji misses a very basic step in brewing Veritaserum. “I’m asking what’s the hold up between you and our favorite resident plant life. Did I stutter?”
Sanji drags a hand through his hair. “Well, I can think of two very good things preventing any of this—” he makes a vague gesture toward the dance floor and himself. “—from happening. One, there was a war involving the entire magical world as we know it—”
“Yes, I was there.”
Sanji makes a pained noise. “Right. And two, we had…” he winces. “...a disagreement. About a month ago. We haven’t really talked since. Which is unfortunate, but life goes on.”
“Are you serious?” Nami’s voice could freeze fire. “So you’re just going to keep not talking to him?” At his stricken expression, she punches him hard on the shoulder. “No, Black, you’re going to fix this tonight. You both are or I’ll cast a Leg-Locker curse on you both and drag you into a broom closet.”
Sanji winces. “I don’t think I’ll be doing much chatting tonight. If you’ve forgotten, I’m very good at disappearing.”
Even now, hidden in his Undetectable Extension charmed wallet, is the Invisibility Cloak Zeff had bequeathed him all those years ago. Therapy helped, but Sanji was never able to shake off his need for an escape route. Experiences are rarely universal; the Strawhats each played a pivotal but unique role in the war effort. Chopper the medic. Robin the recruiter. Franky the headquarters Secret Keeper.
In the war, Sanji was their spy. His pure-blooded background and his affiliation with the Vinsmokes made integrating himself in the heart of the Death Eaters easy but he had to do things he wasn’t proud of to survive, saw things happen that he was powerless to stop: the whip-cracking Crucio curse, Blackbeard unhinged his maw like a serpent and swallowed souls whole.
He always had one hand on his wand, and the other on the Cloak. The habit has followed him like a Sticking Charm.
“Do not use the Invisibility Cloak,” Nami snaps. She makes a gesture. “I’m watching you, Sanji. Oh, look, there’s Usopp. I’m going to go say hi to him, alright? Shout if you need me.”
“You’re the boss,” Sanji concedes, watching as she slips gracefully into the throng of people. He turns, and notices that Zoro—
Year 1
—is pushing his way through the crowd, teeth bared. His green Slytherin robes flap in the wind as he dismounts his broom.
“What was that?” Zoro snarls, leaning close enough to Sanji that he can feel the heat of his breath fanning his face. Viciously, Zoro twists toward Gan Fall, the Quidditch referee. “That should be a foul. He nearly knocked Momo off his broom!”
“I didn’t touch him,” Sanji yells back. “If we’re talking about fouls here, why are you, the Keeper, flying halfway into the field like a lunatic?”
Sanji has known Roronora Zoro for two months and already thinks of punching him in the face on a daily basis. Apparently, this is not a very Hufflepuff characteristic, but Zoro keeps popping up like untamed kudzu, an invasive and annoying species that proves undeterred by any attempts of control.
The last time that Zoro and he were partnered up in the Slytherin-Hufflepuff joint Potions class, they spent half the time bickering over the right way to brew the Cure for Boils, ended up creating something very similar to the Elixir of Death, and lost twenty-five points for each of their respective houses.
Before that, as they passed by each other in the stairs, he heard Zoro call Nami a misery scrooge , and fired a Bat Boogey Hex at him. He’d caught a Dancing Feet Spell in the process. Yet somehow, amidst the moving feet and the bats flying out of Zoro’s nose, they managed to get into a proper fistfight.
At thirteen, Sanji’s passiveness has given way to a persistent anger that boils and brews inside of him, waiting to spew out given any chance. Loathe as he is to admit it, Zoro is the perfect outlet for him, and it both soothes Sanji and hurts him at the same time.
Zeff, the Hufflepuff Head of House, and Herbology Professor had made an astute comment about it, something about the two of them being kindred souls. Sanji isn’t sure what to make of that; being around Zoro makes him feel like a worse version of himself, the kind of person that wants to spit fire, and eat the world. It reminds him too much of Yonji on his better days, and Judge on his worst. And yet, being around Zoro makes Sanji feel authentic, real, rather than a mold of a person.
But then there was the way Niji slung his arm around Zoro’s shoulder, the two matching green ties swinging from their necks. Zoro always looked nonplussed, and Sanji craved that familial approval like a flower craved the sun, constantly and helplessly. He grinded his molars down in his sleep with want.
Gan Fall pulls the two of them apart. “There was no contact,” he says firmly. “And so there will be no penalty. Return to your positions. We’ll resume in five.”
Sanji flies up into the air, eyes flitting about. The shrill whistle cracks through the roar of the crowd, and suddenly, they’re off. The Quaffles are in play, Hufflepuff in possession of the Quaffle. Sanji ducks as a silver Bludger comes streaking toward his head. Chopper darts through the crowd, racing against Yamato for the Snitch.
Katakuri lobs the Quaffle to Sanji, who snags it out of the air. He darts past the two Slytherin Beaters, around Yamato, and shoots toward Zoro, whose shark grin is raring for a challenge. Sanji raises his arm, and throws.
In that moment, as Zoro lunges for the ball, fingertips outstretched, Sanji catches the pure childlike delight in his smile, the dimples on his cheeks, and the desire so evident in each little thing Zoro reaches for. He stops breathing. The Quaffle sails in the air. The world—
Year 7
—slows to a slug’s crawl. Something that only Sanji has realized through watching Zoro at a distance: that as bullheaded and obstinate as he is, Zoro knows how to be deft, when to use grace and when to use force.
Zoro moves through the miggling groups and adoring pairs like water, with a single-mindedness that lets Sanji know he’s been spotted. Caught between a crossroads, Sanji contemplates his options, then dives further amongst the crowd.
To be fair, Sanji has done his fair share of missteps in their relationship—the argument was long overdue anyway. Sanji’s no good with the things he loves—they tend to shatter in his hands like over-tempered glass, and he can’t stop himself. He loves this place, with its ivy-covered walls, and its hidden corridors, and shifting staircases. It’s the second place he learned to call home.
Does he loves Zoro? Love is a strong word, and it’s hard to apply it to someone that has lived in the recesses of your brain for so long. Can you ever see someone you love accurately?
At the start of their seventh year, Sanji reached the conclusion that the Zoro he was so fond of only existed because Sanji had cobbled him together in his mind, stuffed with memory and sewn together with yearning. The same, he was certain, was true for Zoro.
Some of Sanji’s theory was upended over the past few months, before shit hit the fan. Alarmingly, Sanji found that he liked what he saw, even if the air about Zoro carried with it a somber sadness that hadn’t been there before.
He found that he enjoyed debating with Zoro the benefits of the latest Nimbus model versus the Firebolt, or how to best advocate for anti-Muggle hate speech policies. During these conversations, Sanji sopped up the champagne-light euphoria that brimmed out of his skin. In his bed, he cringed at how obviously he wore his heart on his sleeve. Zoro kept his elbows on the table during mealtimes, for fuck’s sake. He chewed with his mouth open. Sanji must have gotten a concussion he hadn’t known about, for him to view these irritants as no big deal.
That, naturally, had only lasted so long. They fought. Sanji severed ties he wanted to hang too tightly to. And then, utter silence.
Which was fine, of course. Sanji was used to things leaving. He’d grown up staring at backs, and standing in long casted shadows. It only made sense to leave first.
Still, an inane part of him had desperately wanted Zoro to be the one to extend the olive branch after that shouting match, even though Sanji was the coward. The problem was that Sanji gave until he had nothing left to give, like that Muggle story about the tree that had been chopped to a stump. And if Zoro really thought about it, he’d realize this was a gift.
Gifts come with prices though. Everyone accepts that, Sanji included.
The distance bit at Sanji, small nibbles of worry, until it consumed his thoughts. He wanted to reach out first, but desperately wanted Zoro to be the first to initiate, even though it was his fault. Zoro didn’t try, just kept his distance like Sanji was Patient Zero for Dragonpox.
All that remains is Sanji, still pining, like a small child that didn’t know when to quit fighting—
Year 2
—a losing battle. Sanji stares in dismay at the unveiled mirror, the cursive Mirror of Erised etched in the gilded frame. Despite his better judgement, he reaches out to brush off the film of dust covering the glass, watching as the Sanji-reflection grins, ear-to-ear.
Standing behind the mirror-boy is a Sora Vinsmoke, and beside her, Zeff. The sand beneath their feet lines the sparkling blue waters behind them—All Blue. Luffy launches himself at the Sanji-reflection, wrapping his long lanky arms around Sanji’s neck, A second later, an annoyed Nami pries him off.
Nico Robin, whom Sanji has designated as the most helpful History of Magic Teaching Assistant, covers her mouth with her hands and laughs to herself. Seconds later, Usopp and Chopper stride into the frame, with Chopper running to help Nami’s Sisyphean task of dislodging Luffy and Usopp assessing the scene with his hands on his hips before taking his position near Robin.
Though his blood-family isn’t in the picture, a certainty settles in Sanji’s bones that this Sanji he sees is loved by them as much as he’s loved by the people depicted in this reflection.
Like looking into the sun, he finally allows his gaze to settle on the familiar mop of green hair and smug grin that is standing next to Sanji. A pang of longing rips through Sanji, nearly cleaving him in two from the sheer force of it.
“You going to jump in, curlybrows?”
Sanji jolts, stumbling backward, nearly slamming into the mirror. He hadn’t realized until he’d moved that his nose was nearly kissing the thin glass, as if he were about to dive in the mirror. He blinks, finding his eyes unbearably dry.
“How did you—it’s none of your business,” Sanji huffs, trying to regain his footing. “How did you find this place?”
“You’re not the only one who knows the secret passages around these parts,” Zoro says. “And Luffy and I found this place earlier in the year. You see something you like in that?” He juts his head toward the Mirror of Erised.
Sanji could say something smart. Something cold that would make Zoro leave him the hell alone, but it’s midnight and he’s just recently developed insomnia and he’s too tired to play the games they usually play with each other. He craves kindness above all else; he always has. Sanji shrugs.
“Yeah.” He moves out of the way. “Take a look for yourself.”
“Don't need to.” Zoro glances over Sanji’s shoulder anyway, but almost as quickly, returns his stare back to Sanji’s face. “You can ask, it’s fine.”
“What do you see?”
“My old childhood friend. Defeating Mihawk in a duel. Being acknowledged as the best duelist in the world. Some other stuff.”
The sudden power of Zoro’s honesty nearly bowls Sanji over. Zoro has presented his heart’s desire to Sanji with no strings attached.
“If you want,” he says haltingly, “You can ask too.”
“Only if you want to tell me.”
“My friends,” he says weakly, the words slipping out of his mouth as if he’s under an Imperius Curse. “My mom. Zeff. All Blue.”
Zoro doesn’t ask why Sanji doesn’t mention the Vinsmokes, and for this, Sanji is profoundly grateful.
Sanji gazes into the mirror one more time. The Zoro in the mirror is standing in the same position as Zoro is right now. The Zoro-reflection is staring at him still. He brims with a softness that erases his hard edges. Zoro raises a hand and—
Zoro’s hand clamps down on his shoulder, mimicking his counterpart. Sanji blinks.
Strange. Sanji’s own reflection hasn’t done anything to mimic his own movements. He squints harder, trying to understand if what he’s seeing is a reflection of Zoro or the mirror’s portrayal.
“C’mon. Let’s get back to the Common Rooms before the Prefects get our ass,” Zoro grumbles, removing his hand. The Zoro in the mirror does the same. “It’s cold as Merlin’s left ballsack out here.”
Sanji nods, unable to get how natural Zoro’d looked around Sanji, like he could be himself. Like he saw Sanji, all the bits he didn’t like to show people, and embraced them anyway,
The real Zoro’s hand wraps around Sanji’s wrist, and tugs. His hand, callused and rough, is warm. Sanji has always run cold.
Together, they leave the dusty classroom and Sanji—
Year 7
—doesn’t look back. It’s all too easy to leave the Yule Ball, a brisk: I need a breath of fresh air , enough to satisfy Mihawk’s raised eyebrow.
There’s a hidden passageway that’ll take him to Hogsmeade, if he can get to the one-eyed witch statue by the Defense Against Dark Arts classroom. Merlin’s beard, he needs a drink. A strong one, preferably a Firewhiskey. He’ll get shit for leaving the Ball from Headmaster Rayleigh Silvers, or maybe not, but it’s a risk he’s willing to take.
Besides, if there’s anyone who understands the need for a strong drink, its Headmaster Silvers. And Zoro.
He picks up the pace.
A degree of their argument is Sanji’s fault, he’ll admit. He hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t had time to brace for impact. Sanji had been hanging wreathes up for Christmas, once December rolled around the corner. Zoro had found him perched on a ladder with the other Prefects, casting Wingardium Leviosas to mount the décor to the walls.
“Hey, curlybrows,” Zoro had called from the end of the Great Hall. “You got a minute?”
Heads craned as the Prefects tried to get a glimpse of Roronoa. At this rate, they weren’t going to get to the tree before sundown, and Sanji resisted the urge to tug at his hair. He sighed and set down his current garland. “Do you think you can hold down the fort while I check what this mosshead needs?” he asked Koby, a Gryffindor Prefect, who nodded. “Alright, the rest of you. Yes, it’s Roronoa. If you want, I can ask him to come over to give you all a twirl so that you get to work. No? Wonderful.”
“You’re acting more like your old man every day,” Zoro quipped, falling in step with Sanji. His gold earrings glinted with light that bounced off reflected snow, and against the white backdrop, there was something otherworldly about him that made Sanji want to touch. “How’s the Prof doing by the way?”
“Same old,” Sanji said. “Leg bothers him but he won’t go to the Healers about it. Says they’ve got more important things to worry about, which you and I both know is just an excuse to not go to St. Mungo’s. What’s going on?”
Zoro’s head tilted to the side. Sanji could almost see the cogs turning, the invisible scale weighing the pros and cons of the next words to leave his mouth. Fondness flooded forward before Sanji could tamp it back. “The Yule Ball is coming up,” Zoro said at last.
“Right,” Sanji dragged out the last syllable. “Are you thinking of asking anyone? I know Mihawk’s been browbeating the Slytherins on how to waltz.” He pursed his lips, trying to feign concern instead of laughter. “I hear it’s not going too well.”
A stray piece of hair falls across Zoro’s forehead. Sanji’s fingers twitch.
“You’d think that given how loaded some of us are, that they would’ve taught ‘em to do a basic foxtrot young,” Zoro deadpans. Sanji chuckles, the sound coming from somewhere deep and true inside him.
Zoro waits for him to finish before shoving his hands in his robes. “Then again, I had to have you teach me, so maybe I’m being a bit hard. Look, I’m going to quit beating around the Flutterby bush. I want to take you, if you don’t already have plans.”
Even now, as he sifts through that scene, Sanji recalls the spear of relief stabbing his innards, followed quickly by the looming inescapability of loss.
Sanji has learned the hard way that emaciation is always better than starvation. You can get by on the dredges of love, but you can’t survive with none. He’s seen firsthand how a dearth of genuine affection hollowed out his siblings, the way that his brothers just accepted it when Judge tried to sell them down the river at the Wizengamot Trial after the war. If each of them had been sentenced to a Dementor’s Kiss, it would have made no difference.
What Zoro, with all his perceptiveness, is blind to is this: that Sanji walks a precarious balance on a tightrope of his own making. That he has had to build everything that he loves with his bare hands, from his relationships to his identity as Sanji Black.
Like a greenhouse, he carefully nurtures each connection over a long period of time. Relationships are effort and Sanji puts his entire being into each one.
With Zoro, Sanji ran the calculations, and determined a long time ago that it was a bit like raising monkshood. The flowers were extraordinarily useful in potion-making but touching the leaves without Dragonhide gloves could get you sent to the Hospital Wing. You had to be careful with the harvest if you weren’t properly equipped, and Zoro has a nasty habit of ridding Sanji of his defences.
It’s true that Sanji wants. Badly. But wanting has always rewarded him with empty hands. That’s Sanji’s curse. He might as well spare Zoro the trouble.
“No,” he hears himself say. He is removed from his body. He can only let things unfold, helplessly, passively, bitterly. In the end, a man’s only company is nostalgia. “I can’t go—”
Year 3
—with you. How do you, a nationally-ranked duelist, need Charms tutoring?” Sanji rolls up his parchment on the 1875 Pygmy Puff Invasion of Northern Ireland. Thank Merlin he scrawled out his last before Zoro barged into the library like a bull in a china shop. “There’s no way that you weren’t casting Flipendo and Expelliarmus es since you were in diapers.”
“I dunno,” Zoro says, “I’m having trouble with—what was it— Ala Carte? Ala Art Ascend? ”
“ Alarte Ascendare,” Sanji clarifies slowly. One young witch shoots them an evil side-eye as they speak. He lowers his voice: “The spell that shoots an object up in the air? The one I’ve seen you cast multiple times in Dueling Club?”
“That’s the one,” Zoro snaps his fingers. “See? You know your stuff, love cook. What time and place?”
“Uh.” Sanji hasn’t even said yes yet. Merlin, if this isn’t a sign of how heads over heels he is, then what would be? “Seven o’clock in the Arithmancy classroom?”
“Great,” Zoro says briskly. Sanji frowns. Temperature within Hogwarts grounds is regulated, and yet Zoro seems to be flushed red. Before he can suggest that Zoro make a trip up to the Hospital Wing, Zoro stalks out as if he’s got a Blasted-End Skrewt on his tail.
“What was that ?” he asks Yamato, who’s finishing his own paper on Animagus Persecution during the Cold War.
“Painful to watch,” Yamato answers sincerely. “Was the Minister of Magic in 1955 Bartholomew Kuma or Gang Bege?”
“Kuma,” Sanji sighs. “But he was replaced by Charlo who was assassinated two months into his election. Do you think I should prepare Charms exercises for tonight in case he’s really that helpless at Alarte Ascendare? ”
“I mean, if you think that he’s being honest, then probably. That’s a second-year spell.”
“But what if he isn’t lying?”
“Alright,” Zoro says when Sanji walks into the Arithmancy classroom. “I lied. I don’t need Charms tutoring. I need a favor.”
“No shit you don’t need Charms tutoring.” Sanji mutters under his breath. “What favor? I don’t owe you anything.” Being friends with Nami has taught Sanji to keep a careful eye on his debts. “I didn’t ask you to punch out my brother. You did that yourself.”
“Yeah, it felt great. No, I’m talking about the time I covered your ass when you stole Gillyweed from Kureha’s office. Remember that? Had to find a kappa and release it in Hogwarts so she’d think a wild animal might’ve been eaten it.”
That’s…fair. “Chopper needed it for one of his potions. He’s trying to create a potion that speeds up mer-healing,” Sanji says defensively before deflating. “Alright, what do you need?”
Zoro says something under his breath.
“Huh?”
“I said, do you know how to dance?”
“Yes?” Sanji says. “What does that have to do with—”
“I need you,” Zoro grits out. “To teach me.”
“Oh, do you?” The grin that spreads across Sanji’s face strains his cheeks. “Is the great Roronoa Zoro admitting he doesn’t know everything? Wow, what a day. Can I hear you say that again? What did you need?”
“Shut. Up. Look, I wouldn’t be asking you for this if you weren’t my last resort—”
“Well that’s sweet.”
“—but Perona asked since she’s going to some fancy rich-person gala with her partner, and Mihawk was there watching and sipping his stupid wine—”
“So you said yes,” Sanji pieces together. “Because you wanted to one-up your sister and impress your dad, except you have no clue how to. Oh, that’s hilarious. Do you even know the difference between the foxtrot and a waltz?”
Eventually, after a few more minutes of cajoling, Sanji takes pity on him. “Here,” he says, and flicks the door shut. With another quick spell, he is able to draw out a melody from his wand. He can hear his blood thumping in his ears. Slowly, he counts to ten. Be objective. Walk through the steps.
Zoro radiates heat, a human furnace. Sanji clenches his jaw. “So, I’m going to have to hold your hand—not that hand, the other one. I’ll lead and then we’ll switch off. I do, uh, have to put my hand on your back.”
Dueling is a physical sport as much as it is a magical one. You can’t just stay in place; dodging, charging, assessing the distance of your spells as well as how much pain you can body are quintessential to the game. It should come as no surprise how solid Zoro is, all muscle and ambition. Sanji resists the urge to rip his hand away—he’s corroding that which should be pure.
Again, objectivity. Take a deep breath. Another. “Great. So now, your right foot. No, your other right. You’re going to take a step forward– not on my foot–”
Zoro’s stiffness eventually fades away. It takes him only an hour to get a hang of the leadee, before Sanji teaches him how to lead. As they step, in unison, two jagged pieces find a match in a world where such things are rare.
How do you learn how to keep things, how to never let them go? How do you bottle memories in the folds of your brain to pull out when you need them?
Sanji isn’t sure, but the best he can do is try to burn each millisecond of time into his irises, and hope for the best.
One. Two. Three. The music plays on, and they continue to step in tune, even when the song has long—
Year 7
—stopped. Like someone had pressed paused on a Muggle television. Your mind does strange things to protect you. It masks memories in a hazy filter, plucking out with spindly fingers only a few key items of stunning clarity, and this is a key image etched in the back of Sanji’s eyelids: the way Zoro froze before his expression went carefully blank.
There is no string of syllables in the English language that can explain the emotions surging through Sanji. This haggard weariness of loss churned together with his deep understanding of himself is barely conveivable, even to him. He's immobilized to the spot.
“I just think,” he says through clenched teeth. “You might not have thought this through, is all.”
Unlike Zoro, Sanji has thought this through, many times. In his daydreams, at night.
Zoro turns back around, brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Sanji crosses his arms. Zoro scrutinizes him, the bulk of his presence overwhelming. Sanji feels his lips curl. “Spit it out already.”
“What is this really about?” Zoro says, steady, composure regained. Sanji abhors him. “‘Cause I’m getting the sense that it’s not about the Ball. Look, if you’re honest, and you don’t see anything here between the two of us, then fine. I won’t ask again. But you’ve got to say it.”
Cruelty takes many forms. To date, Zoro has never hurt Sanji out of malice. A couple of scuffles, sure, but Sanji always gave as good as he got. This demand is not of equality; it’s closer to a verbal massacre. Sanji would rather go a couple rounds in the dueling ring with Ichiji and Niji.
With one single sentence, Zoro clobbered all his defenses, cut off his escape routes, and soundly checkmated him.
He cannot reject Zoro; that would be a betrayal to seven years of authentic longing, and therefore a betrayal to himself. He can’t accept Zoro’s offer; that jeopardizes the safety that Sanji has worked so hard to curate between the two of them.
You can repair broken friendships. Rarely can you repair parted lovers.
“You—” Sanji takes a step back, one hand groping for his bag. Zoro stays put, a mercy in its own right. “This isn’t a story in the Beedle and the Bard . I’m not—what we have is good. ”
“I know.”
How do you swallow that understanding? How do you cope with that unconditional kindness that returns to you as constant as the ocean kisses the shores?
How do you handle it when it’s gone?
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Sanji says, helplessly.
“I know.” But you already are , goes unspoken yet heard.
Sanji makes hard choices often. This shouldn’t be any different.
How is it, Sanji will later think, when he is alone in the kitchen, cooking up a storm, trying not to scream, that he’s played all his cards right, has been so careful and lost what he’d been trying to preserve anyway?
Is it truly better to have loved and to lost, than to not have lost at all? It’s fine, he tells himself. It was good while it lasted but it was always going—
Year 4
—to end. It’s March again, the month of grief. The rain patters on the roof of the castle, and Sanji trudges out into the Great Lawn, pulling his yellow raincoat tightly around him.
His clothing has an Impervius Charm, but since Usopp introduced him to the wonders of a rain-repellant coat, he’s much more fond of the Muggle invention than the hit-or-miss nature of the Impervius Charm.
The edge of the forest is a little ways out. The rain comes down in a gentle drizzle, the wind holding its breath. Most of the students are tucked away in their Common Rooms, sipping hot chocolate around crackling fireplaces.
Briefly, Sanji wishes he were there now, with the rest of them, or playing Wizard’s Chess with Robin and Usopp, but Chopper had promised to save him a mug, and Brook, a fifth-year, told him that if anyone asked where Sanji was, that he’d provide some sort of alibi. He’d ruffled Sanji’s hair with a thin bony palm and then returned to his violin solo.
The grass brushes against his cloak. Mud squelches as Sanji braves through the drenched dirt path, and he comes up to the edge of the forest. He shoves through some of the foliage, making his way into a clearing.
Thestrals. Three adults and one smaller one. Sanji digs through his bag for his pack of raw meat that he’d convince the Kitchen elves to smuggle his way, when he hears the soft gentle: “Easy, girl.”
Zoro, who’s black robes and green hair blended absurdly well with the underbrush, runs one hand through the Thestral’s mane with a deference and respect that Sanji has only seen him show Mihawk. The tension around them feels like candy bubbles, ready to shatter at a single wrong move. Deciding against calling out, Sanji instead returns to sleuthing around in his bag for the package. His hands wrap around the foil packaging victoriously.
“Here.” He moves closer to Zoro. The covering is bound tighter than he expected. “They like birds more usually, but pork does in a pinch.”
“Mm.” When Zoro take the proffered package, his fingers scrape against Sanji’s knuckles.
A white-piercing warmth balloons up inside of Sanji’s chest. Through sheer willpower, Sanji keeps his expression passive.
As the Thestrals sink their teeth in the slab of flesh delicately, Zoro says distantly: “On the first day, I could tell you noticed them.” He sounds very far away. “Didn’t think anyone but Luffy and I could.”
Sanji hums. “That’s probably for the best.” One of the Thestrals trots up to him, pushing her nose into Sanji’s shoulder. He huffs out a breath of laughter. “Pass the rest of the meat, marimo, unless you’re thinking of hogging it all.”
Zoro rolls his eyes. “Maybe I am.” With a casual underhand toss, he throws the package to Sanji.
“I can’t say I’m surprised. You’ve always been a bit of a Neanderthal.”
“Ooh, big Muggle word for a pureblood. Did Robin finally teach you about the theory of evolution?”
Sanji extends a leg, kicking water from a puddle at Zoro. “Shut up.”
Zoro makes a face, but doesn’t repond. They stay like that for a bit, basking in the silence.
“My mom died in March,” Sanji studiously focuses on petting the Thestral. “Some sort of illness. Honestly, though, if you ask me, Judge had a lot of weird Dark Artifacts lying around and he didn’t give a fuck if any of them killed us. I wouldn’t be surprised if—” That rage, that Sanji’s buried under years of anxiety and heartache crawls out of the woodworks. It clambers up his throat, lumping it up. “—anyway, that was a long time ago.”
“I dunno,” Zoro sighs, averts his gaze up to the canopy where a few drops of rain drift through the leafy seams. “Shit stays with you. I was in St. Mungo’s when a childhood friend of mine passed. Fell down the stairs and cracked her head wrong on the floorboard.”
“Well, as the poets say, shit stays with you,” Sanji parrots. He shoulder bumps Zoro, who has a strange expression on his face, like someone who is walking through time.
Zoro says nothing. He doesn’t need to. He doesn’t need to do anything. Whatever it is he needs, Sanji will do on his behalf.
“Hey, check it out, marimo.” Sanji points upward. As if slogging through amber, Zoro follows his finger upward to the treetops again. Light filters through in dapples and puddles of gold. “The sun’s out. Guess the rain’s stopped.
“Huh. I guess it has.”
Boy-warrior with his chin held high, and hungry for what the universe has in-store, Sanji thinks the world of Zoro. He’s not sure what Zoro—
Year 7
—thinks of him. Constantly. The whole point of Sanji leaving the ball is to get Zoro off his mind, but the marimo has planted himself in Sanji's skull, and is pointedly ignoring his eviction notice.
He turns the hall to get to the Defense Against Dark Arts classroom when he stops dead in his tracks.
Zoro leans against the base of the statue, with his eyebrows raised. He’s doing a poor job of masking his amusement, though that's rapidly sliping into a seriousness that Sanji can’t say he’s in the headspace to deal with.
“Hey,” he says, giving Sanji a brief two-finger wave. It’s been months since Sanji’s heard Zoro speak. The familiar timber washes over him, and drapes on his shoulders like a safety blanket. He shrugs it off aggressively.
“Move,” Sanji grunts. “I’m getting out of here.”
“No,” Zoro remains where he is. “I’ve been thinking and we need to talk.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” Sanji counters. “I’m going to Hogsmeade. I need a drink.”
“ You need a drink? Who’s going to come fetch you when your sorry lightweight self knocks out after a single Butterbeer?”
“Ha. Ha.” Sanji monotones. Nami’s disapproving glower rears its ugly head. How long can he run away from chances before they stop being presented to him? How many opportunities will he squander before he sees himself as ready? A lifetime, perhaps. He bites his lip hard.
“No,” he says. “You’re right. We should probably talk. Where do you want to start?”
“We could start with the basics,” Zoro says,“Which is whether you have feelings for me.”
“You know I do,” Sanji says wearily. Merlin, what a relief, to finally be able to speak it into existence. And just like that, all the fight that he’d stored in the pores of his being, ready to be unloaded like a vicious Crucio , dissipates into thin air. The winter chill has soundly put it out, and left behind Sanji’s vulnerabilities, splayed open for slitting like a dog’s stomach.
“Then walk me through what the problem is,” Zoro says. “Because if I like you and you like me, then what’s the issue here?”
“The issue.” Sanji rubs his eyes tiredly. “The issue is that if this goes south, that’ll just be another thing that I’ve fucked up.” And you’ll be gone, he doesn’t say. And I’ll be alone.
“Yeah, I figured you’d say that,” Zoro says. “But how come you get all the credit? What if I’m the one who fucks it up?”
Sanji snorts. “Please, marimo, you’re a knobhead sometimes, but you’re not a malicious knobhead. You’re—I dunno—”
Good. Zoro is good, for him, for Luffy and Nami and the rest of the Strawhats. Sanji is good too, at a lot of things, but he’s also bad at keeping people around when they get to know him too well. There’s some dark ugly shriveled up thing in him that makes people recoil if they stare into the void of his being for too long.
The fact that Zoro’s still here is a miracle.
“I didn’t say anything to you,” Zoro tells him. “‘Even though I knew how you felt because I didn’t want to rock the boat either. You’re right, what you said. What we have now—”
Have, not had , Sanji thinks in relief. Maybe they can still salvage something out of this.
“—is good. But we’re going to hit a wall, and it’s going to make us both miserable. I’m feeling like you already are. Someone’s gotta do something.”
“So you did.”
“So I did,” Zoro agrees. Sanji’s hands tremble. Poor circulation, he tells himself, and shoves them into his pockets.
Zoro notices, and shakes his head. Tapping on the statue with a solid rap of his knuckles, he mutters: “ Dissendium” , and they watch as the heavy stone shifts to the side to reveal a tunnel entrance. “Come on,” Zoro says. “We’re already here. Let’s grab a drink. I could use—”
Year 5
“—a Firewhiskey.” The Strawhats are seated around a table.
Though they don’t know it, this will be the last trip they make to Hogsmeade before Blackbeard kills Headmaster Newgate and Ace dies defending him.
Two months after that, the Romance Dawn trio will be hunted as they track down Horcruxes, and Sanji will take up the post as a spy in Vinsmoke Manor, relaying information to the Straw Hat Grand Army. For now, though, they remain young and unhardened by the War that’s been declared but hasn’t yet touched Hogwarts grounds.
In the Hog’s Head, Sanji listens to Usopp talk about his latest Transfiguration mishap, while Nami and Robin converse deeply, heads bowed together, over the nuances of wild versus fae magic. Franky proudly shows Chopper and Brook his latest artificed knick knack, while Luffy happily yammers to Zoro about this and that.
In general, Sanji doesn’t drink, which Zoro mercilessly rags him about. It’s been a long quarter. Folding his arms on the table, Sanji rests his head and soaks in the bustle of the pub, and the snatches of conversation from his friends.
When he wakes from his catnap, Robin is shaking him. “We’re going to start heading out now, Sanji,” she says. “I believe your bed would be a more comfortable spot to sleep.” Sanji raises his head, does a headcount, and sure enough, a good portion of people have started trickling out.
Zoro and Luffy are still seated in their corner, though Usopp is trying vainly to get Luffy to return with him to the Gryffindor Common Room. As for Zoro, Sanji’s certain that that’s the sixth Butterbeer that he’s had, and Sanji hasn’t even started counting the Firewhiskey shots.
“That’s enough,” he says firmly. To his credit, Zoro’s done an incredible job of humming at all the right places in Luffy’s story even if his blood is half alcohol at this point. “I’m cutting you off.”
“You’re not my mother,” Zoro huffs.
“Astute observation.” Sanji grumbles. “Keep them coming, Rowena Ravenclaw.”
Zoro is as heavy as he looks. With a grunt, Sanji slings the mosshead’s arm over his shoulder, nearly staggering as he hefts Zoro up. Briefly, he thanks his lucky stars that Zoro is at least coherent enough to carry some of his own weight. “I’m dumping you back into the Slytherin Common Room.”
He half-lugs, half-drags onto the cozy village of Hogsmeade. Cold air bites at their faces, and Sanji adjusts so that he can wrap some of his scarf around Zoro’s neck. “You remind me of someone I know,” Zoro mumbles once they pass Honeydukes.
“Does he also have the patience of a saint?” Merlin, he’s working up a sweat.
“He’s more of the martyr type,” Zoro says idly. “Your calves are super nice. Do you ever skip leg day?”
“I’m going to drop you,” Sanji warns, threateningly. Blood rushes to his cheeks. “It’ll hurt.”
“Don’t,” Zoro groans. “I’ll throw up. Did I tell you already that you remind me of someone? He’s fucking mean as hell too. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good guy. He’s always fixing snacks for Chopper or checking Usopp’s papers. Patched up Luffy a couple times after some of our…you know. Smart and good-looking, but Merlin above, he’s annoying as shit.”
“One, you already said that. Two, if I didn’t want to get your vomit all over my robes,” Sanji says, as they close in on the Castle Grounds. Snow is drifting down in flakes. “I really would have dropped you.”
“Hey, I like that about him,” Zoro complains. “I mean the smart and good-looking and good guy part but also that he’s annoying. You could throw a brick at his skull and he wouldn’t get it. He’s dense.”
“He’s going to kill you in the morning,” Sanji warns, descending the steps toward the basement. Zoro is drunk, which means nothing he says is true. Then: “Maybe he’s afraid.”
“I don’t want him to be afraid,” Zoro says, while Sanji knocks hard on the Common Room door. “I just want him to be happy.”
“Yeah well,” Sanji sighed. “He’s working on it.”
“I know,” Zoro huffs. “I like that—”
Year 7
—about him too. The missing eye is new, of course. Zoro’s grown even broader since the war, which is an absurd fact, but objectively true. There’s a smaller scar across his knuckles, a mole under his ear, and speckles of brown in the silvers of his irises.
Zoro places the Goblin wine in front of him. What a strange sight they must seem, two young wizards in formal robes seated at the bar of a pub on Christmas. Sanji allows himself to do another once-over of Zoro, his black robes with a brilliant green intertwined in the thread.
“You like me,” Sanji finally says. “Since when did that happen?”
“Beats me. First-year? Earlier?” Sanji watches with horror as Zoro slips a metal flask out of his robes and pours the clear liquid into his drink. “Vodka,” he explains. “Early Christmas gift. Turns out Cavendish has a guy, who’s just some second-year Muggleborn who steals from his parent’s liquor cabinet.”
“That’s…a lot to unpack.”
“Not my liquor cabinet.”
“I was talking about your crush on me from before Year One, but by all means, let’s focus on the liquor cabinet.”
“I think,” Zoro takes a swig of his monstrosity. “That you don’t do well with uncertainty.” Naturally, this is the understatement of the century. “I figured that me admitting to having long-term feelings for you would put you more at ease. You seem a hell of a lot more tense.”
“It puts more on the line,” Sanji counters. “You’re going to get tired of me someday. Or, I don’t know, bored, or angry. Something’s going to push you over the line, and you’re going to leave. And then I’ll have wasted seven years of your time. Or more.”
“Maybe,” Zoro acknowledges. “But I've already seen you, at both your highs and your lows. And I've still decided that I'm willing to take that jump for you. Besides, you've got the option of leaving if you wanted to.”
“I don’t like not knowing,” Sanji stares into the Goblin Wine. Somewhere along the line, Zoro must have picked up his aversion to Butterbeer. Zoro, he's figuring out, notices a lot of things about him that Sanji doesn't even notice about himself.
“Sucks for you. That’s life. Eventually, you’re going to have to take a risk, whether it’s on us or something else that you want.”
Sanji exhales slowly. The pub window facing outside has fogged up. Seconds of his existence are ticking away with each breath he takes. Would he rather spend more or less of those precious specks with Zoro? The answer is clear.
A leap of faith, Zoro is saying. Do you trust me?
The snow falls outside, wiping away all traces of their footprints, the ground a sheet of fresh white parchment. The Muggles like to say that today was the birthday of a holy figure. He thinks of Hogwarts, how life is slowly returning into the walls. Some of the Hufflepuffs still come to him at night, terrorized by nightmares of bodies lying on the Great Stairwell, or of the Dementors swooping from the sky. All Sanji can do is fix them a mug of hot chocolate, and hope that time will ease the pain.
Maybe that’s true of himself too. He can’t erase his whole person, but each day is a new day to be reborn again.
“I’ll go to the Yule Ball with you,” Sanji says. “If you still want to.”
Wordlessly, Zoro stands and extends his hand. They stroll out into the snow, leaving new steps—
Year 6
—behind them.
On paper, the war ended six months ago. In reality, it lives on in Sanji’s head, breathing wetly like an animal in the recesses of his mind, alive in the today and tomorrow and all the days beyond.
How does one reconcile with being a war hero at sixteen? Sanji doesn’t know, not really. What he does understand is that it is on his shoulders to rebuild, to restore any semblance of structure to the Wizarding World. Luffy, Zoro, and Nami may have been the cover page disruptors, but Sanji, Robin, Usopp, Chopper, Brook, and Franky play their parts equally well, albeit much more quietly. They stitch sutures and rebuild homes. They found galas and donate proceeds to grieving widows and teeming orphanages.
For Sanji, returning to Hogwarts was was a no-brainer. He’d seen the grief that saturated the old stone castle, and thought: is no one going to fix this? He knows all too well what it is like to be left to cobble yourself back together.
There are moments of doubt, of course. He doesn’t always know if he made the right decision. He could have just applied to be an Auror and they would have likely handed him the job on a silver platter, but he’s only seventeen now, and he wants to try to be a kid again before time forces him to stay an adult.
The Hufflepuff prefects badge sits on his chest reassures him on better days. Other days, it suffocates with the length of the road ahead.
Zoro is due back in the next year, along with Nami. Both took a year off after the war, and rightly so.
He could do with something to drink. A hot chocolate, maybe. He has to owl Zeff soon too—he’s been putting that off for too long.
He rises to his feet. The orange flames of the fire flicker and lick after him. It’s Christmas, and the castle is dark, filled to the brim with ghosts and hurt.
The interim Headmaster, Rayleigh Silvers, recently formed a committee, with Professors and students alike. “We can’t live in the past forever. Eventually, we’ll have to regain what it means to live,” he’d said. Their goal was to slowly inject normalcy back into the Castle while maintaining room to process the aftereffects of the war. Already, they’ve integrated a support program, licensed wizarding therapists, medical staff, and new procedures for Professors who may be teaching students who experienced or fought in the war. These things are vital, yes, but not everything.
It’s Christmas, and the castle is dark.
The other day, Professor Ivankov proposed bringing back Yule Ball, a throwaway one-liner that no one paid much attention to. Sanji moves to the kitchen, pilfering through the cupboards, until he spots a bottle of milk.
“Is this lactose-free?” Sanji mutters as he holds the bottle to the light, tongue stuck to his throat. The white liquid shimmers gold, almost apologetically, before slowly fading back to its signature creamy white.
It’s not a matter of Sanji being lactose-intolerant, which he isn’t and there’s no shame in, but the fact that he knows that Zoro is, and all the food he makes takes all the Strawhats’ dietary restrictions into account. Their first year, all Zoro could gripe about in the Great Hall was about how bland and dairy-heavy white colonizer food was.
It doesn't matter that Zoro isn't here. Old habits die hard.
He waves his wand in the direction of the kitchenware. A small brass pot floats over, and Sanji plucks it out of the air. Pouring in the milk, he sets it over the stove. Zeff used to make him warm milk nights that he couldn’t sleep, mixed in with a dash of honey and rosemary.
He really should owl the old man.
Sanji wasn’t around for the last Yule Ball–they’d paused it after an unfortunate student death, an investigation which was being reopened. He imagines it—the decorations, the laughter, the dancing, the music.
The joy returning bit by bit.
He summons a piece of parchment, and begins to write: A Proposal: Reintegrating Wizarding School Diplomacy Post-War.
He has a letter to send to Durmstrang. Law, he writes. It's Sanji.
Year 7
The music that is playing is an old Celestina Warbeck song.
“Please tell me you haven’t forgotten everything that I’ve taught you.” There’s barely any room on the dance floor, but neither Zoro nor Sanji mind all that much. They’d raced each other back to the Ball, bickering about who got there first.
“Guess you’ll have to teach me again,” Zoro shrugs. Sanji punches his arm, hard.
Zoro’s hand on his back. His hand intertwined with his. Nami’s bright smile and Usopp’s ecstatic thumbs up. The world aglow.
“You better not step on my foot. I’ll jinx you.” Sanji tells Zoro, who throws back his head and laughs.
“I’ll try my best,” he says.
Me too , Sanji thinks. I will to. I might not always get it the first time around but I'll try my damn hardest despite the ending. Do you know that?
From the upward tug of Zoro’s lips, he does.
With that they’re off.