Like always, thanks to Joycelyn for her patience and her ability to spot my mistakes and correct them. Also, many thanks to Conangse for the review!

Chapter Two: Adaptation

Connor Angel wasn't a normal child. Even without knowing his extraordinary story, one would notice it with just one look at him.

First, his expression was pretty uncommon for a kid his age. Normally, children were cheerful and carefree, or pouty and sulky. Connor was neither. His look was serious most of the time (and somewhat distrusting, like someone who had seen too much) and thoughtful. He didn't talk much, but one could see that he didn't miss a single detail. He studied everything and everyone, calculating their strong points as well as their possible flaws, and also the possible danger they could represent, in the same way an extremely careful (or paranoid) adult would have done.

Secondly, he didn't seem impressed by the things most children were. He wasn't enthusiastic at the childish games that Flitwick had tried to teach him (but maybe because those games were too magical for his liking), he had no idea of how to use a toy, and he certainly didn't like to be cuddled, as Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey soon found out. In fact, he didn't like to be touched at all, not to say being hugged.

More disconcerting, though, was his apparent lack of fear. Darkness didn't frighten him, neither did scary creatures like hippogriffs. He didn't appear to be afraid of Hagrid, who could be quite terrifying at first sight, or the Forbidden Forest (which could be a problem if they didn't watch out).

But what puzzled Professor Snape the most was that Connor didn't look intimidated even a little bit by him. Considering that most of his students shuddered from just one of his glares, not to say with his sarcasm, it was more than a little shocking that the boy didn't even blink under Snape's stare. Actually, he even appeared to feel rather comfortable with him. Which was ridiculous. Snape didn't know how to treat young children. Snape didn't even like young children.

In spite of this, the truth was that Connor seemed to enjoy the times Snape took care of him. It was hard to explain, due to the Potions Master's coldness and severity, but that was the way things were.

Maybe it was because he never tried to cuddle him, or to entertain him with silly and incomprehensible games. Or maybe because he didn't use so much magic in his presence (instead he did these sparkling mixtures which Connor thought were sort of cool). On the other hand, there was always something interesting in his office. As to coldness and severity, well, Connor had spent five years of his life in Daniel Holtz's company, so he was quite used to it.

So while Snape did his mixtures or corrected his students' homework (the term had started a week ago), Connor would spend his time investigating his office (always being careful not to touch anything conspicuous), drawing something or trying to understand Flitwick's newest and useless game. All of this as quietly as he could, of course. Professor Snape didn't like to be questioned or annoyed with too much noise, and for Connor that was okay. Daniel had taught him the virtue of silence.

This time Snape seemed to be upset over something, so Connor tried to be especially quiet while he was drawing a Pylean scenery. When he was colouring an extremely ugly demon's face, he heard footsteps coming down the corridor. He looked up, but Snape didn't pay him attention, until a knock was heard.

'Finally,' he snapped, standing up and opening the door.

A twelve-year-old girl was standing on the doorstep, looking slightly apprehensive. She was wearing Gryffindor's colours and carrying a broomstick.

'Good afternoon, Professor. I came as soon as I got your message. It sounded urgent.'

Her pretty face was darkened by worry and anxiety as she waited for Snape's reply.

'And it is, indeed,' He used the low and cold tone of voice that sent shivers down his students' spines. The girl didn't flinch, but she looked a little more worried. 'I've just had a word with the Head of your House about your…performance in my lessons.' The girl gulped, and he sneered. 'I'm afraid I'll have to take some drastic measures if I don't see any improvement soon, Tonks.'

'What kind of measures, sir?'

Snape's sneer became more pronounced.

'As detentions seem to make no effect on you, I suggested not allowing you to play Quidditch as long as you insist to be such a disaster in my class.'

Tonks's jaw dropped in horror.

'You can't do that! I've just got onto the team and, besides, Potions has nothing to do with Quidditch!'

The teacher was no longer sneering. In fact, he looked quite angry.

'Listen, silly girl. Today you not only managed to blow up your cauldron for the second time this week, but you also managed to make another three cauldrons blow up in a row. If you don't begin to be careful, you'll put yourself and your classmates in severe danger, apart from destroying my classroom. So start to be very cautious in my lessons, or you can say goodbye to Quidditch for the rest of your school career!'

The girl seemed to understand the message, because her face became very pale. She didn't say another word, but after Snape had dismissed her Connor could hear her sobbing in the distance.

There was a sullen expression on the Potion Master's face when he sat down at his desk again. The boy watched him for a few seconds, then he stood up and approached him.

'I think it was the right thing to do.'

Snape blinked, taken aback for a moment. Connor ignored it and went on.

'Sometimes, you have to be cruel to be kind. If you hadn't talked to her like that, she would have kept being careless and she might have hurt herself or someone else.'

His tone of voice was serious, like always, and not for the first time Snape thought that this boy had a head too old for his young shoulders. However, he did feel a little pleased that at least someone agreed with the way he treated his students.

'Funny, but most people – Professor McGonagall, for instance – don't appear to think that way.'

Connor merely shrugged. Sometimes, he found certain people's behavior impossible to comprehend.

'Why don't you show me what you've been drawing?' Professor Snape asked, trying his best to sound polite, but his voice sounded somewhat harsh from the lack of practice. Connor didn't seem to mind that much, though. He handed his parchment to Snape, unable to hide his pride. He thought it was one of his best drawings.

The teacher studied it, a frown on his face.

'It's ugly,' he said, and the boy's heart sank. 'But I bet that the model was quite ugly too.'

Professor Severus Snape was more than a little shocked to see that the always too serious Connor Angel was actually grinning.

Percy Weasley was in a temper, which was quite an unusual thing. Normally he was a placid child, a little too serious maybe. But today he was in turmoil.

He had been trying to read a very interesting book under the oak in the garden, but the twins had been making too much noise. He'd told them to be quiet, but they ignored him, as per usual. They behaved worse, if possible, shouting and screaming and chasing each other and laughing. So he got tired of it after a while and entered the house, with the purpouse of continuing his reading.

However, things weren't any better inside. His mother was frantic becuase Ginny had showed the same symptoms as Ron and she was afraid they were both sick of Dragon Tattoo, a common but highly contagious illness. And due to the reduced size of their house, it was very possible that the rest of the children would get sick, too.

So when Percy approached her to ask the meaning of a particularly difficult couple of words, she yelled at him to go out. He didn't like that. He didn't want to go out with Fred and George, and he wanted his mother to give him answers and pay him some attention, not to yell at him.

Of course, he wouldn't dare to disobey her. Very few were brave enough to contradict Molly Weasley when she was mad, and Percy was an obedient kid. Perhaps a little too obedient.

He took his pet, Scabbers, and exited, fuming. When Bill was still at home, things hadn't been like this. He knew how to keep the twins under control and how to calm down their mother. But now he was at Hogwarts, as well as Charlie, and Percy was left alone at home with the kids. Because of course that the twins were too annoying to play with him, and Ron and Ginny were too small, so he was on his own.

He wished he were at Hogwarts, too. There he wouldn't be alone as he'd have a lot of classmates to play with. And he'd learn loads of interesting things and magic and all. But he was only eight years old, so he'd have to wait a full three years until he could take the Hogwarts Express.

He talked about all this to Scabbers. Of course he knew that the rat wouldn't be able to understand what he was saying, but he nedeed to talk to someone – anyone – or he'd explode. And Scabbers was the only thing that was truly his, the only thing he hadn't inherited from his elder brothers or cousins. Percy had found it three years ago, while had been helping his dad (or trying to help) get rid of the gnomes. The poor rat was hiding under some bushes, and not only was it very thin, but also injured: one of its fingers was missing and bleeding.

'Daddy, can we take it home?'

Arthur Weasley had a soft spot for helpless little creatures, so he'd agreed. His wife, on the other hand, was less than thrilled. Ginny was just three months old and she had her hands full, she certainly didn't have time to take care of a pet. But Percy insisted so much in keeping the animal that she finally gave up. In the end, the boy proved that he was responsible enough to take care of his pet by himself, so Scabbers stayed for good at The Burrow.

Scabbers wasn't a fascinating or active pet, but Percy would have sworn that it understood everything he told it. The rat, which was getting fatter and fatter, stared at him with his round, dark eyes, as if it was listening intently to every word he said.

Sometimes, Percy thought Scabbers was the only friend he had. And, sometimes, he couldn't help to wonder why its attitude seemed so human to him. So unnaturally human.

But, most of the time, he didn't think too much about it.

Wesley stared at the piece of parchment in front of him.

'Is it good news,' Gunn asked him. Wesley blinked. He hadn't seen him coming.

'Actually, it is. Professor Dumbledore says that Connor is adapting to Hogwarts quite well. He's even getting used to magic.'

Gunn snorted.

'Let's hope he don't get used to it too much or we'll have trouble when he comes back. 'Cause he's comin' back, right?'

'Of course. I just...I just think it'd better if we leave him there a little while longer. He seems to be all right, and here we have our hands quite full right now.'

Gunn nodded and left in silence, leaving Wesley alone with his thoughts. He reflected about Connor. He was just a troubled young child who had seen too much. And who would have to see much more, according to some prophecies.

He wished it wasn't like that. He wished that Connor could have a normal childhood – as normal as the son of two vampires could have – he wished that he'd never have to worry about apocalypsys and fulfilling prophecies. He wished that he could be raised by his own father. And Cordelia. But things weren't like that.

His face darkened when he remembered the night when Angel and Cordy had died. It had been a quiet night, and the attack had taken them all by surprise.

Wolfram and Hart had sent its best SWAT team, along with the demon Sahjaan, in order to retrieve and presumably kill Connor. But something went wrong. Holtz had found out about Sahjaan's true intentions and he and his second-in-command, Justine, kidnapped the baby while everyone else was too busy fighting. They knocked Lorne and Fred unconscious, who had been watching Connor, and the woman had stabbed Wesley when he'd tried to stop them. He'd been lucky, though. Later he found out that Holtz had taken over many of the SWAT team members, and those didn't live to tell the tale.

And Cordy and Angel had died. They didn't know exactly how: they'd found Cordy's body next to a pile of dust and Angel's coat. At first they'd thought she was just unconscious but there wasn't a heartbeat or a pulse. She never woke up.

At the morgue they said her brain had just collapsed, and Fred found some medical studies at her place that indicated it was a miracle she'd made it so long, when most of her brain was dead. But why she had collapsed in that very minute, and how... They'd never know for sure.

After healing their wounds and regrouping, they'd begun their search for Connor. What they hadn't known at the time was that he no longer was in their dimension, so all their efforts were futile. After three weeks without results, they were becoming desperate.

And then Justine showed up.

She looked very different from that night. Her hair was longer, darker and messier; she was slimmer and there were several lines around her eyes now. She was wearing some kind of shabby robes and a scar crossed her left cheek. In short, she looked much older, as if years and not mere weeks had passed since she'd stabbed Wesley and kidnapped Connor. The only reason why he didn't kick her out was because he hadn't recognized her at first. And then he saw who was with her.

A small and skinny boy, with big blue eyes and brownish hair, was holding her hand tightly as if he was afraid she'd disappear in any moment. Wesley was pretty sure he'd never seen this boy before but there was something in his face, something in the way he was standing and the way he studied his surroundings that was painfully familiar. And then it hit him: He looked just like Angel when he felt uneasy and distrusting.

'Is he...? No, it can't be...'

'But he is,' she'd whispered. 'You can bet he is.'

And he was. Connor Angel, his best friend's son, was now five years old.

'How can this be?'

And so she'd told him the complete story. Holtz had found out about Sahjaan, and he'd wanted to prevent him from killing Connor. But he didn't trust Angel, of course, so they'd kidnapped him. But the demon had followed them and had tried to stop them. They'd been ready. As soon as he'd got close enough, they used the magical urn that would keep him trapped forever. However, they hadn't been able to trap him before the demon had opened some kind of portal that had sucked the three of them. A portal to a hell dimension.

'The natives call it Pylea,' She'd explained to him, and he was shocked. The time in Pylea worked the same way as in their dimension. Why, then, five years had passed for Justine and Connor?

She told him that it was because of all the changes there had been in Pylea since the priests didn't rule the place. Some of those changes had affected the way time worked there, she wasn't sure. The guy that had helped them to go back had explained it to her, but he hadn't given her too many details. He'd just warned her that she'd probably find things the same way she'd left them.

'But they're not the same. Not the same at all.'

Wesley asked her who this man was, and to his shock she answered he was called the Groosalugg. He was the ruler of Pylea now, and when he'd found out that Connor was Angel's child, he'd inmediately wanted to help Justine to go back.

'But why did you suddenly want to go back? What happened? And where's Holtz?'

Her face darkened. In a low voice, she explained that there was an epidemic in Pylea. No one knew the cure, no one knew how to prevent it. And it was lethal.

Holtz'd been worried that Connor might get the sickness, as children were more vulnerable to it. So they'd asked the Groosalugg for help, even though they knew he was a friend of Angelus.

However, Holtz'd got sick before the portal was ready. He'd only lasted a few hours. Justine had no choice but to go through the portal with Connor and leave him there. She was planning to take care of him, as Holtz would have wanted – but then she saw them. The green spots on her neck. The same ones that had appeared on Holtz's neck before he died. The same ones that had appeared on everyone else who had got the sickness.

'So here I am. I can no longer take care of him. I've done my best, though. If you still want to kill me...go ahead. It no longer matters.'

He hadn't killed her, of course. She'd left, then, without saying goodbye to Connor because she'd thought it'd make things easier for him. And hell began.

Connor didn't trust them at all. Holtz had told him his parents had been evil, so he didn't think much of his father's friends. Apart from the fact he was terrified of Lorne (and Pyleans in general), he didn't like Gunn, he thought that Fred was an evil witch because he saw her using magic once, and he believed that Wesley was a liar.

He didn't believe what the former Watcher had told him about Holtz's death, and he hoped that he and Justine would come back for him. It never happened, of course, but the kid still believed they would. In fact, he escaped a couple of times, hoping he'd find them, and once he was nearly killed by a nasty clan of demons. Which didn't help him to trust them at all, of course.

Finally, they got truly scared when Connor's magical powers manifested at first. They thought he was possessed, until Wesley talked to Giles. The older Watcher had guessed what was the source of Connor's powers, and had suggested taking him to Hogwarts.

At first, they were reluctant to follow that piece of advice. They had sworn they'd take care of Angel's child. They owed him and Cordy that much. But soon the situation was unbearable (Lorne even ran to Las Vegas) and they had to face the reality: they couldn't take care of him.

Now Connor was at Hogwarts, and he seemed to be doing quite well. Certainly he didn't miss them at all.

Wesley sighed. At that time, he'd thought that taking Connor to Hogwarts was the best option. Giles knew the Headmaster, it was a safe place, and he'd learn to tame his powers there. But now he had the odd feeling he'd made a terrible mistake. He reread the parchment, filled with dread.

Connor is adapting very well. He is being more tolerant towards magic, and we hope that he will accept his own powers soon. Also, he seems to be enjoying himself at the castle…I am sure you would be able to take him home in a couple of weeks…

Gunn's words haunted him. What if Connor adapted so well to Hogwarts that he wouldn't want to go home at all?

Notes:

When I first thought of this story, I based it fully on Snape and Sirius dealing with their surrogate children. However, as I wrote this fic there was a side story that began to form in my mind: the long, uphill road to redemption that Darla was bound to take. So I began to write a series of vignettes about her side of the story, a sort of companion piece to this fic. It's not necessary to read it, but there you'll find certain things (like Connor's birth or Angel's death) more carefully described. You can check it out here: http/ go to my profile and check 'i so far down'.