May 30th, 1895 - Swan Residence

Angie had asked for half a day off, knowing the students would be released after breakfast and she ought to be home when Connor got there. She had sent letters both to him and Headmaster Black, detailing the change in location for his end of the term, though neither had deigned to reply. She could guess Connor's reaction, and was as ready as she could be. Their little house, though on the nicer side of Pennyworth, was nowhere near as extravagant as the manor, but definitely an upgrade for Angie from the London flat. It still didn't feel real despite the fact that she had been here for a couple of days. Once Cash had gotten his things from the flat (that she had offered to keep storing at the new house), she had wrapped up her own packing and sent everything over.

It was weird; she didn't exactly like it.

She had the feeling Connor wasn't going to like it either, but they were in this together, regardless.

His things were in his room, though she hadn't had the time to put anything away for him or even decorate it much really. The manor still had some things and she planned to take him to see if there was anything else he wanted before she started to get rid of it all in earnest. Once the manor was gone, she would be able to replenish her savings and set the rest aside for Connor's education and future. It felt even less real to suddenly be thrust into this guardianship, but she was not about to just leave him either. He'd lost enough already.

The walk back from the train station had been near silent and as Angie let them back into the house, she levitated his trunk up the stairs. "Welcome home?" She intoned it like a question, mostly because she really wasn't sure what else to say.

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Connor Sinnet

  

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How was this his life? Going to Hogwarts should have been enough change for one year, but somehow – Connor still couldn’t comprehend why – he had exchanged his life for a stranger’s.

A stranger who, apparently, lived here. It was roomier than Angie’s dingy London flat, but that was about all Connor could say for it. It had been part-disbelief that he had stopped him in the street, when Angie stopped beside him and shepherded him in. Connor had expected to walk across town, where the proper houses were. And, fine, this wasn’t the worst place in town – he had seen Hogsmeade streets out of a penny dreadful, with no streetlamps or proper paving, alleys that looked fit for thieves and penniless orphans.

(Connor hadn’t considered that he might be as good as an orphan now. Surely his mother would still come back for him, whatever Angie said?)

“I don’t get it. Is this the best you could do?” He had tried to sound dismissive, but it was more than that: really he didn’t get any part of this. And then his gaze got caught on the trunk she’d just set down in ‘his room’ for him – his room currently consisting of some furniture and a measly stack of his things from the old house. Somehow it made his entire existence look small and pathetic. He turned to stare at Angie, petulant. “I don’t think I want to live here.”

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"Yeah, I didn't want to move either." Angie shrugged. Her flat had been a refuge. Not just for her, but for a host of friends who needed somewhere to land when things weren't going well or they just needed a break. She supposed the townhouse might be that during the school year still, but knew they had to get settled first. This was their new home, like it or not, and she had to figure it out.

Closing the door behind them, Ang looked around at the impersonal walls and bland decor. It was standard, basic, hopefully she could make it feel more like home, in time. "I can take you back to the manor to get more of your things, but I only grabbed essentials this time." Basic furniture, clothes, a few other things that looked worn and therefore hopefully important. She didn't know enough about him to really pick and choose anything else.

It would have to be soon, the sale had gone through last week and they had until the end of next week to get everything out. Angie had cleared a lot of it out, sold a lot of things, was leaving quite a bit of furniture and larger items for the people moving in, but she still had to go through their parents' rooms and she wasn't sure she wanted to. She also though Connor might want some of the things too. "Listen, I get it, it's going to take some adjusting." Angie was still adjusting. Rebekah and Marius had abandoned them both and now she had to pick up the pieces. It was hard not to try and place all of the blame on them, but Ang knew Connor probably didn't want to hear it, either.

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   Connor Sinnet

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Connor had been being kind when he had said I don’t think. Because – he knew. He knew he didn’t want to live here. And part of it wasn’t even about the tiny townhouse, or the things they had left behind (not much of it had been his; most of it had been been his parents’ things, really), but the fact he hadn’t had a say in any of this.

And where were his mother and Marius?

Connor looked at Angie with a frown, unmoved by her complaint, and unconvinced by her talk of adjusting. She probably didn’t give a knut’s worth about where their parents were; she had walked out of their lives years ago. And they had left him in her care? Why had they done that? “I don’t see why I have to live with you. I don’t even know you,” he retorted, kicking the nearest wall with his shoe and leaving a scuff mark on the unwallpapered white. “They wouldn’t – they wouldn’t just leave me with you.”

He hadn’t cared over Christmas: it had been temporary then. But this – this felt dangerously like forever, and Angie had abandoned him before his parents ever did.

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Angie took a long slow inhale. She'd been trying to be delicate, to hold in her own feelings on the matter, to accept what had happened; their parents had abandoned him and she was the only logical choice. Angie knew she had sixteen years of life experience on him, understood her parents better than he did and still the condescension stung a little.

It was the last straw that snapped her patience.

"I can show you the letter that says that they did." She said flatly. She had no more agency in this matter than he did. Except Angie had a stronger sense of responsibility than Rebekah and Marius. It seemed to have been lost over the decades since finding her in the woods. One child abandoned and recovered then, the same was happening now. Except he was old enough to be petulant and stubborn about it. Understandably so, but it didn't soften her any less to the reality of it.

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Connor blinked, suddenly startled. “I don’t believe you,” he said, kneejerk, even though she had just dangled the proof of it before him, proof he didn’t want to see. His parents disappearing was altogether different from his parents leaving him, and what was more, saddling him with Angie, about whom they had scarcely spoken in the years after she had gone.

This wasn’t fair. “We’re not the same,” he protested. Angie didn’t seem happy about this, but this wasn’t about her – “You weren’t their real child, you were only a stray they took in. I’m – I was –” like them, like his mother. Supposed to be loved and looked after, by someone who actually cared – not Angie, who apparently had been forced to against her will. He knew his parents were – different than most, but he was a half-vampire too. Who else did he have, exactly? And how could he and Angie have ended up the same, when she had chosen her life away from them and he hadn’t?

He screwed up his face into a bitter frown, trying to resist the hot tears of anger pricking in the corner of his eye.

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Of course he didn't. This was naturally her fault, as if at twenty-eight, she wanted to become a parent to a twelve-year-old. And a bratty one at that. Angie remembered it of course, how spoiled she had been at that age, her attitude and her views on the world, of her parents. Life had taught her better, but she had also learned the lessons the hard way and he would likely have to as well.

A stray they took in. Angie couldn't help it; she laughed. His argument may sound valid in his head, but Angie had always thought that if Marius hadn't cared, he wouldn't have bothered to bring her home and keep her. He'd chosen to raise her. She had always been closer to her father than her mother for it, but it had probably been the opposite for Connor. Being his mother's natural child would have created a bond of some kind, but not a strong enough one in the end. Vampires were selfish creatures, Ang had come to learn this as she'd gotten older. They lived long enough to follow their whims and forget their responsibilities. Rebekah and Marius would likely outlive both Angie and Connor and then they would just be a memory, a blip in the timeline and nothing more.

"You can read it if you want and the decide, but there's nothing much to really argue about. They left. They left you with me and I'm here taking responsibility. You can do with that what you want." It might sound harsh, but Angie was not a naturally patient person, especially when confronted with such obstinance, but she was trying.

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   Connor Sinnet

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If he had thought he might be able to hurt her somehow, by throwing out comparisons, he’d been wrong. And nothing had hurt him quite so badly as the way she laughed, laughed like he was wrong about everything.

He jutted out his chin, not going to read the letter, because if he read the letter it felt like the world would come crashing down more than it already had. Angie had no reason to lie about it – she had no reason to want to be here with him, either, Connor saw that now. So – no one cared about him, no matter whose blood he was. They had even cared more about Angie than they had about him.

“Fine,” Connor snapped. “Fine, I hate them then. I hate them and I hate you too!” His voice was raised, his fists balled up bitterly, hating even how calm and resigned Angie was in this moment. “And I don’t need you,” he said, storming away from her and into what was going to be his stupid new room, hoping slamming the door behind him would prove as much, that he was just as happy, then, or happier, to be alone.

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Angie supposed that ought to sting, but frankly she was in "camp hate the parents" right now too, for basically forcing parenthood on her when it was not something she had ever wanted, even for herself, with children that were actually hers. Now she was Connor's guardian, he was rightly annoyed and upset by the whole thing and she was just doing her best to keep them housed and fed and hopefully out of any public scrutiny. It was a good thing she'd already changed careers, because she would have been bitter as hell if she'd had to give up cursebreaking for this, specifically.

Sighing audibly as she heard his door slam, Ang didn't really know what to do about it other than to give him some time. Hopefully things this summer would give him an opportunity to simmer down a little. At least when he was back at Hogwarts that was more familiar for both of them. And that was most of the year. It was just holidays and summer she would need to prepare for. Maybe by Christmas they would have both found an acceptable rhythm.

There wasn't much else she could do for him right now and she wasn't about to chase him upstairs and try to work it out, so Ang moved into the next room to unpack some things for the house. She still needed some time before she wanted to unpack this whole situation emotionally.

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The slamming door made him feel better for less than half a second, so Connor sank down to sit against it, arms curled around his knees. He doubted Angie would come in to try and soothe him – she had to take care of him now because he was her responsibility, but it wasn’t like she cared about him – but if she tried, he could probably hold the door shut, if he kept all his weight pressed against it.

He could hear her moving around in one of the other rooms, shifting stuff about. This stupid new house wasn’t even big enough to get away from her properly. Azkaban would probably be nicer than this.

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