I am re-uploading all of my chapters because they are not showing when I add new chapters and they are not updating properly.

o~O~o

Getting in to the Greengrass home was almost ridiculously easy. They had foolishly extended an invitation to their private gala to everyone they thought was influential, with no regard for personal safety it appeared. That was their first mistake. Their second was not giving the house elves very specific times that all of their guests must leave the home. Their third was that they did not make certain the wards checked for strangers leaving the property as well as preventing strangers from getting in.

Eager to prove himself to his new friends, and never one to pass up a chance for a bit of mischief, the thief merely had to wait for his family's invitation to the event and then find a very quiet room to wait in until the other guests left and the family had gone to sleep.

Creeping about he looked for anything that was old or valuable. Something the family would make a real fuss about. And if he managed to snag a few things that he kept for himself to fuel his own lifestyle without having to go to his parents for money? Well, he knew that his friends would not begrudge him that little indulgence.

The Greengrasses were going to learn the price they would pay for failure to recognize their true lord and ruler. The Dark Lord did not tolerate neutrality. Alastor Greengrass had been called upon to submit his family fortune and influence to their cause and had refused. He would now pay the price for that refusal. They needed serious financial backing and influence if they were going to bring the Dark Lord back from where ever he had been banished to after that dark night at the Potter's.

Entering in to a room he quickly recognized as a nursery, the thief knew the price the Greengrasses would pay for their neutrality.

Grabbing a large pillow, and with a grin of pure malice, he approached the first of the twins.

Finishing with the first twin, he turned his attention to the second. Before he could complete his work he heard someone approaching. Pulling his broom from the pack on his back, and securing the loot he already had in the same pack, he fled out the window and out above the Greengrass manor before anyone had a chance to see and identify him.

His friends had been distinctly unhappy and ungrateful for his contributions.

"Where do you think we are going to offload THIS? I swear getting a niffler would have been more useful than sending you out." The woman swore at him slapping the back of his head.

"It has to be worth something!" he shouted, looking over all of his loot "What about this?" he poked his largest item.

"Too recognizable, ALL of this is too recognizable! Get rid of it!" The older man shouted at him. "We will take care of your blunders this evening!"

Gathering up the offerings he had laid before them he sped out once again in to the night. This stuff was not easily offloaded, he had to admit. And worse, if he just left it laying about someone could tie it back to him…

With a stroke of inspiration, he made his way to the Leaky Cauldron and in to muggle London. Finding a bus that was reminiscent of the Knight Bus, but with no beds, or hot cocoa or anything that made that particular death trap at all inviting the thief made his way on to the bus. A quick wave of his wand made certain the driver did not ask too many questions and after a couple of stops he simply got off of the bus and left his package behind.

There, that should make certain no one came sniffing around he or his companions. No one was going to look for the Greengrass treasure in muggle London!

o~O~o

The Daily Prophet's headlines screamed the news the next day "Greengrass Twin Found Smothered in Cradle." Photographs of a devastated Alastor and Antheia Greengrass were plastered across the front page, gruesome in their intrusion into the family's private hell, but the wizarding world could not get enough of the gory details.

The Dark Mark had been fired in to the sky above the home, some said it had even been carved in to the infants body. Rumors that the rest of the family had been gruesomely assaulted as well made their way in to the streets. Those rumors proved unfounded, as did the desecration of the child's corpse.

But the Dark Mark was true enough, and its writhing, twisted, vile image made the front page for days afterwards as every reporter wanted at go at their pet theories.

The funeral was a somber affair. The Ministry managed to keep the press back away from the Greengrass property where little Astoria Greengrass would be laid to rest in the family tomb.

In a nod to pureblood traditions, she was being entombed with a stuffed toy house elf. The old traditions demanded a house elf be sacrificed to be buried with the child so they would have a nanny in the afterlife. While it was whispered that in some of the more extremist families this was still done, most opted for the symbolic stuffed toy. It kept the tradition alive enough so that no one hissed "blood traitor" in the streets at them for failing to uphold pureblood traditions, but did not make a splash across the front page that killed political aspirations.

Working on every single detail and planning for every eventuality, kept Antheia from going mad.

Alastor was a broken man. After the funeral, he withdrew from public life and poured all of his energy in to his remaining twin, Daphne.

The thief had attended the funeral. He barely held back his grin that would have given him away. This was all too delicious. Fondling his wand he wondered if he could get away with casting the Dark Mark again to proclaim his Master's victory over this traitorous family. Deciding against it, he left early before his actions or facial expressions could give him away.

The Greengrasses never fully recovered from the death of their young daughter, although Daphne was a delight to them in every way. They pampered and spoiled her shamelessly. They went on to have one more child, a son born in the spring who they named Pallas.

Both children would go on to be sorted in to Slytherin, yet like their parents before them maintained neutrality in the second wizarding war, wanting nothing to do with Voldemort's rise and fall, only wishing to live as normal a childhood as possible..