Chapter Text
The morning unfolded slowly at Malfoy Manor.
Sunlight filtered through the tall windows of the breakfast room.
Somewhere outside, a peacock screamed… an ungodly sound that still made Hermione jump even after ten years of living there.
She was setting the table, wand flicking in small domestic movements, butter dish to the left, marmalade charmed warm, teapot humming softly as it steeped.
“Tiddle,” she called, without looking up, “a few more slices of toast, please.”
“Yes, Mistress Hermione,” chirped the house-elf, already bustling at the stove.
Hermione smiled faintly. For once, things felt ordinary. Quiet.
“Scorpius! Come down, honey, breakfast is nearly ready!” she called toward the staircase.
No answer.
She frowned, drying her hands on a tea towel.
Usually, that announcement was enough to summon a thundering run down the stairs.
“Tiddle, did you see him?”
The elf froze mid-step.
“Tiddle?”
Tiddle’s fingers started to twitch.
Then she dropped the entire tray of toast, plates clattering, butter flying across the floor.
Hermione blinked. “Tiddle, what on earth-”
The elf let out a small, strangled wail and, to Hermione's horror, grabbed the frying pan and began whacking herself over the head.
“Tiddle! Stop that!” Hermione rushed forward, trying to wrench it away.
“What are you doing?!”
“Tiddle is bad!” the elf cried between hits.
“Tiddle helped the Young Master but Tiddle did not know! Tiddle must be punished!”
“Merlin’s sake… Draco!” Hermione shouted, panic sharp in her voice.
“Draco, come here immediately!”
Draco appeared moments later, shirt half-buttoned, hair mussed from sleep.
“What the bloody hell-”
“I don’t know!” Hermione panted, finally prying the pan free.
Tiddle collapsed at Draco’s feet, clutching his ankles.
“Please, Master, don’t send Tiddle away! Tiddle didn’t mean it!”
Draco crouched instantly, the irritation draining from his face.
“Send you away? Why would I… Tiddle, what happened?”
“Tiddle can’t say!” the elf whimpered, eyes huge. “Tiddle made a promise!”
Hermione’s stomach dropped. “A promise?” she repeated. “What promise, Tiddle? Where is Scorpius?”
At that, the elf began to sob harder, smacking her little head on the marble tiles. Draco caught her before she could hurt herself.
“Enough,” he said sharply, though his tone was gentle.
He crouched, meeting her gaze.
“Tiddle, listen to me. Whatever my son did, I won’t punish you. But you have to tell me what happened.”
Tiddle’s lip quivered. “Little Master is gone,” she whispered.
Hermione’s pulse stopped cold. “Gone?”
Draco’s jaw clenched. “Gone where?”
Tiddle hiccuped miserably. “With his eccentric uncle.”
“What?!” they both yelled in perfect unison.
“When? How?!” Hermione demanded, her voice climbing an octave.
“Tiddle didn’t know!” she squeaked.
“Little Master asked me to take him to Young Mr Potter! He said he needed something from him! Oh, bad Tiddle! Foolish Tiddle!”
Draco went very still… the dangerous kind of still.
Then, in one stride, he was at the fireplace, tossing in a handful of Floo powder. “POTTER! POTTER!” he roared.
The flames flared green, and Harry’s sleepy, dishevelled head appeared in the grate.
“Calm down, Malfoy, I heard you the first time. It’s seven in the morning- unless Voldermort is back-”
“Scorpius is gone!” Draco barked. “And apparently your son knows something about it!”
Harry groaned, dragging a hand down his face.
“Oh for god sake… ALBUS!” he shouted over his shoulder.
From somewhere in the Potter kitchen came the distant sound of toast burning and a muffled, “What did I do now?”
Harry turned back. “He’s coming.”
Hermione folded her arms, trying to steady her breath.
“Please tell me this is a misunderstanding...”
A moment later, a younger voice piped up, too chipper for the situation.
“What is it, Dad? Oh, hullo, Uncle Drake!”
“Where. Is. Scorpius.” Draco’s voice could have frozen magma.
Albus had the decency to look alarmed. “Uh…”
“Albus,” Hermione said gently, “sweetheart, we’re not angry…”
“ALBUS SEVERUS POTTER!” Ginny’s voice thundered from somewhere in the background.
“If you don’t tell them where Scorpius is, you’ll be grounded until you’re forty!”
“Alright, alright!” Albus yelped. “But if I tell you, you have to promise not to ground me!”
“We’ll see!” Ginny snapped.
Albus stiffened.
“Okay, fine. Scorpius took my invisibility cloak and went with Uncle Theo. He said he’d left you a note!”
There was a pause long enough to hear Hermione’s sharp inhale.
Then Ginny’s shriek rattled the Floo network: “HE WHAT?!”
Draco shut the connection with a flick so violent that the fire hissed and spat.
Hermione turned pale. “Oh my god, Draco. What if he’s lost? What if something happens…”
“We’ll find the note,” Draco said firmly, voice tight with fury barely held in check. “Then we’ll find Theo.”
As if summoned, Tiddle reappeared, trembling, clutching a folded piece of parchment.
“Dear Mum and Dad,” Hermione read aloud, voice shaking, “please don’t be mad at Albus…”
𓂀𓋹𓆣𓆃
Marrakesh was chaos wrapped in sunlight.
Theo had forgotten the way adventure could make him feel like himself again.
The noises of the souk, the smell of cardamom and oranges, the voices of traders shouting over one another like an orchestra with no conductor.
He’d been in the city for a day and already considered himself half-local, mostly because he’d stopped flinching every time a donkey cart nearly ran him over.
Freedom, he decided, had a specific flavour… somewhere between spiced mint tea and mild sunstroke.
He sat at a café near Jemaa el-Fna and tried not to think about how good it felt not to have Draco sighing disapprovingly or Hermione handing him twelve-point plans for every hypothetical situation.
He’d earned this. The noise, the dust, the illusion of starting over.
He pushed his chair back, stretching his legs, and regarded the notebook in front of him.
It was opened to a map sketched in uneven lines, half annotations and half wild guesses.
He grinned to himself. “What could possibly go wrong?”
The waiter appeared, deposited another small cup of coffee, and eyed him suspiciously.
Theo smiled politely, knowing full well that Englishmen’s sketching tomb maps weren’t exactly subtle.
He reached for his satchel, rummaging through for his supplies - compass, wand, charm rope, flask, snacks…
Theo frowned.
The bag was suspiciously light.
He dug deeper.
Quill, parchment, loose sand from gods-knew-where, and something that might have been a dried fig once.
But no chocolate bars. No dates.
No packet of honey biscuits he distinctly remembered nicking from Hermione’s kitchen before leaving.
He stared into the bag like it had betrayed him.
“Impossible,” he muttered. “I packed at least three…”
He upended the satchel. Crumbs fell out. That was all.
Theo blinked. “I’ve been robbed,” he decided out loud, ignoring the side-eye from the next table. “Of snacks.”
He sat back, glaring at his bag.
But despite it all, the air was warm, the world was wide, and the noise of the city was intoxicating, reminding him that he wasn’t meant for walls.
Nothing could have tampered with his good mood, not even the snacks' thief.
He scribbled something in his notebook:
Day one: morale high. Stomach empty. Dignity intact. Probably.
He wandered back to his rented riad - a narrow, sun-baked building with blue shutters and a courtyard.
It wasn’t luxury, but it had its charm: patterned tiles, an ancient ceiling fan and a balcony overlooking the rooftops where cats conducted their nightly feuds.
He’d been unpacking the last of his belongings which mostly consisted of questionable notebooks, shirts, and one emergency bottle of Firewhisky… when disaster struck.
“Bloody… OW!”
He’d walked straight into the corner of the low wooden table. Hard.
Theo grabbed his knee, hopping in a circle like an outraged flamingo.
“Oh, fucking hell, that hurt!” he barked to the empty room, voice echoing off the tiled walls. “I swear, if this table had a face-”
But then he froze.
Because in the still silence that followed, he heard it: a soft, very muffled chuckle.
His wand was in his hand in an instant.
“Who the fuck is there?!” he snapped, spinning toward the sound.
“Show yourself before I start hexing furniture!”
For a heartbeat, nothing moved.
Then, in the far corner of the room, the air shimmered and a shape began to appear.
A hood slid back. A fabric rippled down.
And there, standing in his socks, hair a mess, clutching what was unmistakably the Potter family invisibility cloak, was Scorpius Malfoy.
Theo stared.
Scorpius beamed. “Surprise!”
Theo blinked once. Twice.
Then, flatly: “Of all the possible outcomes… smugglers, curses, divine punishment… this was not on the list.”
Scorpius looked far too pleased with himself.
“You said I could come when I was older. I’m older!”
Theo pinched the bridge of his nose, already feeling the migraine of a lifetime coming on.
“Older as in ten years older, not ten minutes older, you lunatic child.”
Scorpius shrugged, entirely unfazed. “I brought snacks.”
Theo blinked again…
“You” he began slowly, horror dawning, “you're the snack thief.”
Scorpius held up a half-eaten chocolate bar like a peace offering. “Sharing is caring.”
Theo closed his eyes, counted to five, then muttered, “I am so dead.”
He looked at the boy, then at the cloak.
“Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy,” he said, voice dangerously calm. “Do your parents know you’re here?”
“Probably… by now,” Scorpius said.
Theo groaned, pressing his palms to his eyes. “Wonderful. Excellent. I am dead. 100% dead man walking.”
He dragged a hand down his face, muttering something that might’ve been a prayer or a curse or possibly both.
“Alright,” he said finally, pacing the length of the room.
“Alright. Don’t panic.” He pointed at Scorpius. “You’ve just travelled halfway across continents, with no supervision, and my chocolate supply. That’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
Scorpius blinked up at him, chewing serenely on another bite of chocolate. “You sound like Mum when she’s panicking.”
Theo stopped mid-pace, his voice shrill. “I am not panicking.”
He stalked over to the trunk, flung it open, and found, to his horror, a half-folded Hogwarts jumper belonging to Draco, a pair of mismatched socks, two chocolate frogs, and a single quill.
“That’s your luggage?” he demanded.
Scorpius nodded proudly. “I packed light. You always say that a true traveller only needs charm and a wand.”
Theo closed the trunk very slowly. “I said that, didn't I…”
He started pacing again, muttering under his breath.
“Right. New portkey. That’s… that’s doable. I can arrange that. Few forms, some gold, a minor miracle.”
He turned back to Scorpius, voice rising.
“But it’s going to take at least two days before I can get approval for a return portkey out of Morocco, and in that time, your parents will probably kill me, resurrect me, and kill me again out of sheer creative spite.”
Scorpius tilted his head, thoughtful. “Mum wouldn’t kill you. Dad might.”
Theo stopped pacing, pointing a finger. “Exactly. That’s the kind of moral support I needed.”
He sighed heavily, flopping down onto the bed.
“Alright. New plan. We lay low. We don’t leave this room, we don’t cause international incidents, and we absolutely do not get cursed, possessed, or spotted by anyone who reports to the Ministry.”
Scorpius beamed, sliding onto the foot of the bed. “So… we’re staying here?”
Theo groaned into his hands. “Yes. We’re staying here. Safely. Quietly. Peacefully. Until the portkey is ready.”
Scorpius grinned wider. “Like an adventure!”
Theo’s head shot up, eyes narrowing.
“No. Not like an adventure. Like a punishment. A very boring, uneventful punishment where no one explodes, bleeds, or writes about me in the Prophet.”
“Can I look at your map?” Scorpius asked innocently.
Theo clutched his satchel to his chest. “Absolutely not.”
But it was too late.
Theo slumped back, staring at the ceiling fan that refused to spin.
“Brilliant. I’ve become the irresponsible uncle in every cautionary tale ever written.”
Scorpius looked up from where he’d started rummaging through Theo’s maps, eyes wide with delight. “Uncle Theo?”
“What?”
“I think this is going to be so much fun.”
Theo closed his eyes. “I’m doomed.”
From Theodore Nott’s Memoir
Chapter 1: The Two-Day Disaster.
By sunrise, Theo had made peace with his new reality: he was now a fugitive uncle hiding from two of the most terrifying parents in wizarding Britain.
He’d barricaded the riad door with a chair (“precautionary measure”), hidden the enchanting mirror (“strategic decision”), and sworn an unbreakable vow to himself that nothing, absolutely nothing, would go wrong for forty-eight hours.
By noon, everything had gone wrong.
The first incident involved breakfast.
Theo had left Scorpius unsupervised for five minutes while fetching water from the courtyard. Five.
When he returned, the kitchen looked like a pastry bomb had gone off.
“I thought I’d make pancakes!” Scorpius said brightly, flour streaked through his hair like war paint.
Theo surveyed the wreckage: eggshells on the ceiling, butter melting down the counter, and a cauldron that was smoking.
“In what universe,” he asked weakly, “is this a pancake?”
Scorpius looked at the bubbling mess. “An experimental one?”
Theo exhaled through his nose.
“Alright, that’s it. No cooking. No spells. No alchemy.”
“Can I help clean up?”
Theo looked around at the devastation. “Only if you can perform an exorcism.”
By afternoon, Theo’s headache had become chronic.
He’d tried to distract Scorpius with safe, quiet activities - reading, sketching, napping - but the boy had the attention span of a caffeinated pixie.
At one point, Theo looked up from his notes to find the boy missing entirely.
He found him outside five minutes later, deep in conversation with an elderly spice merchant and a stray cat.
“You weren’t supposed to leave the room!” Theo hissed, dragging him back inside.
“He said his cat can find lost things!” Scorpius protested.
Theo blinked. “His cat?”
“Yeah! He said if I give him a feather, he’ll always come back.”
Theo pinched the bridge of his nose. “Wonderful. We’ve joined a feline cult.”
By evening, things had only escalated.
Scorpius had somehow learned Accio in Arabic from a street performer (“He said it was educational!”), convinced a local boy to swap marbles for Theo’s compass (“It glowed, Uncle Theo! He thought I was lucky!”), and nearly summoned a camel through the courtyard window.
The camel, thankfully, declined to appear.
Theo, however, nearly had a stroke.
“Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy,” he groaned, clutching his temples, “if you make one more magical friend, I swear to every ancient god I will portkey you home myself in a teapot.”
Scorpius was undeterred. “You said we’re here till tomorrow anyway!”
“Yes,” Theo snapped. “Tomorrow. Assuming I survive until then.”
The boy beamed. “You’re doing great, Uncle Theo.”
Theo blinked. “This is a nightmare.”
Scorpius laughed so hard, he doubled down on the floor and it was then that Theo noticed something glinting around the little boy's neck.
“...Scorpius,” he said slowly, setting down his cup. “What’s that?”
Scorpius looked up, unbothered. “Oh! Mum’s locket. Pretty, isn’t it?”
Theo’s blood went cold. He was on his feet so fast the chair skidded backwards and hit the wall.
“Mum’s what?”
Scorpius blinked. “Her locket. The one with the funny markings. I borrowed it from her desk. It… uh… sort of glow sometimes, look-”
“Don’t touch it!” Theo nearly shouted, lunging forward and catching the boy’s wrist before he could flip the clasp open.
The air between them seemed to pulse, faintly electric.
Theo stared at the pendant, praying he was wrong.
But he wasn’t.
It was the same locket Hermione had carried since Egypt, the one that had sealed the Spirit’s vow.
“Oh, sweet merciful Merlin,” Theo whispered, stepping back like it might explode, "You stole the locket…the Spirit's locket.."
Scorpius frowned, confused. “It was on Mum’s desk. I thought it was hers.”
“It is hers,” Theo said through gritted teeth, “in the same way a basilisk is a pet snake. It’s the Spirit’s vessel, Scorpius!”
He stopped himself, eyes darting instinctively toward the window.
The air felt too thick.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered. “Who saw that? Did anyone see it glowing? Did you wear it outside?”
“Yes of course,” Scorpius said helpfully. “The lady at the spice stall said it was pretty.”
Theo closed his eyes. “Of course she did. Wonderful.”
He forced himself to breathe, then crouched in front of the boy, tone soft but urgent. “Alright, listen to me carefully. We are not touching that again. We are not mentioning that to anyone. And we are absolutely not taking it anywhere near sand, temples, or sunlight.”
Scorpius’s face fell. “But-”
“No buts. Give it here.”
He unhooked the chain with trembling fingers, murmuring a containment charm under his breath.
The runes flickered faintly in response like something inside was listening.
Theo’s pulse skipped. “Bloody marvellous.”
He crossed the room, dug through his trunk, and pulled out a reinforced ward-pouch. “This stays sealed,” he said, tucking the locket in and setting three locks on top. “We’re putting it somewhere safe, and if your mother asks, you say it was my fault. She’ll still kill me, but at least I’ll die, loved.”
Scorpius looked guilty. “Are we cursed now?”
Theo gave a long, despairing sigh. “Not yet. But the night is young.”
He straightened up, scrubbing a hand down his face.
“Right. New plan. We don’t go outside, we don’t touch anything that glows, and we definitely don’t say the word Spirit.”
Scorpius blinked. “What if it hears us?”
Theo stared at him. “It’s not an owl, Scorpius. It’s a vengeful cosmic entity with attachment issues.”
There was a pause.
Then Scorpius whispered, awed, “Cool.”
Theo groaned. “I’m going to have an aneurysm.”
Later that night, they sat together on the rooftop, the city humming below them.
Scorpius leaned against him, tired but grinning. “You like it here,” he said softly.
Theo stared out over the lights, letting the silence stretch. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I do.”
“It feels… magic-y.”
Theo smiled faintly. “That’s one word for it.”
Scorpius yawned. “You think Mum and Dad are mad?”
Theo gave a small laugh, low and fond. “I think mad doesn’t begin to cover it.”
He looked down at the boy - hair messy, cheeks flushed, a smear of cinnamon on his nose - and something inside him twisted.
Because in the morning, they’d have to go back.
And Theo wasn’t sure what scared him more - facing Hermione and Draco… or admitting that, for the first time in years, he didn’t actually want to be alone.
𓂀𓋹𓆣𓆃
The next morning Theo stretched, yawning, as Scorpius sat at the table happily demolishing a plate of toast.
“I’m going to miss you, Uncle Theo,” the boy said between bites. “This was so fun.”
Theo raised an eyebrow over his coffee. “Fun? You tried to feed biscuits to a camel.”
Scorpius grinned. “He liked me.”
“That’s the problem,” Theo muttered, but there was affection tucked under the words.
He ruffled the boy’s hair and stood.
“Alright, sunshine. I’m off for a quick shower, then I’ll pick up the portkey. One more hour, and you’ll be safely back in your mother’s arms before she hexes me into next week.”
“Promise you’ll visit?” Scorpius asked.
Theo smiled over his shoulder. “Cross my heart and all that.”
He left the door half-open, humming tunelessly under the hiss of running water.
The sound of the city dulled to a low murmur behind the tiles… water, birds, wind. For a few minutes, it was peaceful.
Then a noise.
A scrape. A clatter. Something metallic hitting the floor.
Theo froze. “Scorpius?” he called out, half-annoyed, half-fond. “If you’re making more pancakes, I swear to Merlin…”
Silence.
He frowned, turned off the water, and grabbed a towel. “Kid?”
Still nothing.
A cold prickle crawled down his neck as he stepped into the corridor.
“Scorpius?”
The living room was pure chaos.
The table overturned. Maps and parchment scattered everywhere.
The warded trunk was forced open, its lock charred black.
A chair lay on its side, one leg splintered.
Theo’s gaze caught on the half-empty breakfast plate, the smear of jam still wet, and his heart slammed against his ribs.
“Scorpius!” he shouted, crossing the room so fast he nearly tripped over the rug. “Scorpius!”
No answer.
Then he saw it, a scrap of parchment on the floor, weighted with a smooth stone.
He picked it up with shaking fingers.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
If you want the child back, bring us the locket.
Theo read it twice, the words blurring. The blood drained from his face.
“Oh, hell,” he whispered.
He tore through the flat, checking the kitchen, the small balcony, every corner… nothing.
Just the faint smell of ash where a portkey had been forced open.
Theo sank to his knees beside the table, the note crumpled in his hand.
The locket. Of course. The bloody locket.
He pressed a palm over his mouth, forcing himself to think.
“Alright, Theo,” he muttered under his breath, voice shaking but steadying itself by habit.
"Think. They want the locket, which means they know what it is…” He exhaled, laughter breaking on the edge of panic. “…which means we’re bloody screwed.”
𓂀𓋹𓆣𓆃
Luxor, Egypt
They brought the smuggler to her at dawn.
The woman waited with her hands tucked into the sleeves of her loose jacket, watching as the horizon slowly came into focus.
She wore no insignia, only a plain scarf and a knife that had been sharpened a hundred times.
Her hair, once a vanity, was pinned without thought.
A faint white line ran from the edge of her jaw to the hollow of her throat.
Boots scuffed. Two of her people pushed a man forward.
He stumbled and cursed, eyes mean and red-rimmed from a night without water. Around them, the rest of the cell fanned out in the shade of the ruins: a half-circle of faces, some young, some older, all alert.
The woman nodded once. “Cuffs off,” she said.
Karim eased the iron from the smuggler’s wrists.
The man flexed and looked around for an opening that wasn’t there.
“You’re a long way from your usual routes,” the woman said, voice calm.
“And farther still from the permit you sold a tourist last week. The one that ‘guaranteed safe passage’ into a place that doesn’t exist.”
The smuggler laughed. “You don’t look like the Ministry.”
“We’re better,” murmured someone on the left.
A few of the circle smiled, agreeing with the statement.
The woman didn’t.
“Names,” she said. “Of the men who paid you to bait amateurs into the dunes. And the map you used to bait them with.”
He jutted his chin. “If I talk, they cut my tongue. If I don’t, you… what? Drag me to the police? You people are ghosts. No one sees you unless you want it.”
“True,” she said. She stepped closer. He flinched. She didn’t touch him.
“We don’t cut tongues. We make calls.” She glanced at Karim, who already held out a folded piece of parchment - formal, stamped, the ink still fresh.
“Trafficking in antiquities. Guiding unlicensed expeditions. Endangerment. Four missing students. The list is long… You’ll be very popular in custody.”
His bravado faltered.
He spat at the ground instead of her feet. “You think you’re saints,” he muttered. “You’re Medjay.”
“We aren’t Medjay,” the younger woman said - respectful, not denying the legacy, but merely stating a fact.
“We’re the Eyes of Ma’at.” the leader corrected. “We want a better world.”
She nodded once to Karim, who produced a battered map case from the smuggler’s pack.
Inside lay three sheets: two for tourists, and one that made the woman’s stomach turn.
Symbols that were not quite hieroglyphs scrawled over a stylised river; a serpent’s coil where no temple had ever stood.
“Who gave you this?” she asked quietly.
He stared over her shoulder, trying to look bored. “A buyer. Tall. Wore a scarf. Called himself Abid. Paid in sterling.”
A flicker crossed the woman’s face and was gone. “And the students?”
He swallowed. “They paid, they walked. Past the third marker. I didn’t go after.”
No one spoke.
At last the woman nodded to Nora, who stepped forward with a cup of water.
The smuggler squinted, suspicious.
She waited. He took it and drank too fast, water spilling down his shirt and onto the dust.
When he lowered the cup, the woman was closer again.
“This is how it will go,” she said. “You will give us everything you remember. We will pass you to the authorities with the evidence you so generously provided. If you try to run, we will not run after you. We will walk. We always catch up.”
He laughed, a short, shaky sound. “You think you’re better than the gangs.”
“No, I don't think,” she said. “I know, for a fact, that we are better.”
She turned away before he could answer.
Mercy, but not softness. That had taken years to learn.
“Karim, notes. Nora, send the message. We return him with the map. The students’ families get the first news.”
The circle broke into motion. When things were moving, she finally exhaled.
Another successful interrogation.
They moved at noon to their current safehouse, a low, whitewashed building at the edge of the oasis.
Inside, old mats softened the sound of steps; the walls were full of maps and clipped notices.
In the central room stood a long table. The woman traced one deep groove with her fingertip in passing.
People filtered in: scouts from the market, a pair of young men who’d learned to charm locks and wanted to teach others; a grandmother with a basket of flatbread and the right to scold anyone who tried to refuse it.
What they were wasn’t a single thing. That was their strength. They’d grown from a rumour into a net.
The meeting began with the ordinary: routes to watch, a museum liaison who had finally decided to stop pretending they didn’t exist, a villager who wanted someone gone and would need to learn that her people did not do vendettas.
She listened more than she spoke. Another lesson learned late.
Halfway through, the door opened and a woman with dust on her hem scurried in.
“Report,” the leader said.
“From the Marrakesh contact,” the scout replied in a single breath.
“Two men working in Jemaa last night. They took a boy. Ten? Eleven? They left a note for someone… it's about the locket.”
The room went very still.
“Describe the boy,” she said.
“Blonde hair,” the scout said. “Too well-dressed for a street rat. English. He was with an eccentric gentleman, the vendor we interrogated, said he called him Uncle Theo."
The leader didn’t move. Her heart was racing a million beats per second.
"Leader?" the woman asked, "What are your orders?"
“Who took him?” she asked.
“...The Children of Apep,” the scout said reluctantly.
A ripple of anger moved through the room.
“Why the locket?” someone asked.
“Because they are fools,” the leader said. “And because someone taught them how to be.”
Her people watched her, but she was lost in memories as if the past might walk in and save her the trouble of deciding.
“Options?” she said.
“Alert the Ministry contact,” Karim offered. “Quietly. If we move first and loud, they will scatter before we can track them.”
“Send a runner to the Marrakesh safehouse,” Nora said. “We’ve got friends in the spice quarter. Eyes on the ports and the rooflines.”
“Put word to the market women,” added the grandmother, unruffled. “No boy crosses a square without us seeing him.”
“Good,” the leader said. She set her palms on the table. “And us?”
Karim hesitated. “You want to go yourself?”
“I want the boy alive,” she said. “Prepare a kit, non-lethal first. We will need a negotiator..”
The room hummed with assent.
Plans began to unravel across the table: arrows to alleys, names to faces, favours to call in.
The leader listened, corrected, suggested.
When there was nothing left to assign, she released the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.
“Remember our rules,” she said. “We don’t leave a mess for the people who live there. We don’t make promises we can’t keep. We don’t forget that every hand we twist has a mother who will curse our names.”
A murmur. Heads bowed in agreement.
She reached for her scarf and tied it with a practised motion.
They were nearly to the door when a younger runner skidded in, breathless. “Message from the Marrakesh safehouse,” he blurted. “The boy’s uncle is in the city.”
The leader paused. Ten years ago, this news would have made her heart soar.
But time had made her steadier. She had a job to do and people that counted on her.
She nodded once, slow.
Karim’s mouth quirked. “Orders, ra’eesa?”
She stepped into the doorway, into the heat that was already building, and let the sun warm her cheek.
“We move now,” she said.
“No noise. Bring me routes and suspects in two hours, a plan in three and the boy by sunset if the gods are kind.”
A chorus of assent. Bodies in motion.
“And if the gods aren’t kind?” Nora asked, because someone always did.
“Then we move on to plan B,” the leader said.
They flowed past her and she watched them go with something like pride and when the last of them faded in the shadow, she finally allowed her memories to resurface.
Ten years since she’d last seen him.
Would he remember her or had she been the only one unable to bury the past?
She shook her head. There was no time for that now.
Squaring her shoulders, she followed her people into the desert.
Karim fell in step beside her, the smallest of smiles on his mouth.
“Is everything alright…Leader Layla?” he asked.
The End... (or is it?)