The news that the giants had broken peace with the humans was pretty big. Up until then, a steady if tension-fraught truce had existed between the two races for years. In fact, humans had managed to remain with fairly good relationships with all magical creatures and races ever since Grindlewald had been defeated.

Giants are not particularly peaceful creatures by nature. Their sudden revolt reflected this. Giants who were employed as construction workers, guards, and animal trainers turned against their employers, and when a giant rebels, things get bloody. Several squads of hit wizards had to be sent in to take out one of two giants. Some people got overly excited and spread rumors that the giants were going to try to take over London. Mothers threatened their badly-behaved children with stories of the giants who would come to clobber them if they didn't settle down. Of course, my mother never did. I was perfectly aware that no giants would ever attack us, no matter what Sirius said. They would never make it far enough into the city.

The revolt started up a wave of violence and distrust. Basically, wizards and witches became extremely suspicious of any non-humans or intelligent creatures. Some wizards took their money out of Gringotts, claiming non-humans couldn't be trusted with that sort of responsibility. There was a disastrous attempt on the part of villagers to chase an old vampire out of his crypt in a rural cemetery which resulted in the death of several farmers and the town mayor after a fire was apparently started by one of their torches. The old vampire escaped. The Tattler claimed that a number of centaurs had been hunted down in a park, loads of non- or part-humans lost employment and the Ministry began to renew and renovate their policies concerning part-human employment. Cousin Belerma gave all of her house elves a thorough beating just in case they felt rebellious themselves, which I felt at the time to be ridiculous as I had never heard of a rebellious house elf.

I was very surprised to hear Cousin Orion say that the giants would be sure to help us out in an eventual war against the Muggles, and that the giants understood where true power lay: with the rising Dark Lord. None of the papers had officially linked the giants' rebellions with the Dark Lord, and it frankly confused me. I was under the impression that his policies included the elevation of human life over that of animal or part-human life. That is not to say that I include Muggles in that statement. He didn't think Muggles really counted as humans. To him, they were more like half-humans, incomplete, worthless and malformed through their lack of magical abilities, like a bucket full of holes or a lame horse. Still, I was pretty sure that families like mine who supported the Dark Lord's movements were all for the total enslavement of brutes like giants and ogres—I mean, can you imagine working in an office side by side with a giant? I can't!—so I didn't see what the giants' motivation was for siding with him. I guess sometimes any sort of change seems like good change when you're living in hateful conditions.

Speaking of that, the giants weren't the only ones agitating for change. Now that I was finally getting a chance to go to Hogwarts, I found that the Black reputation preceded me. But now it wasn't just a reputation for pure-bloodedness, talent, and ambition. No, there was another Black there now who had developed a reputation for something entirely different: trouble. I'm speaking of Sirius, of course. Sirius and his mates. It was my first year at Hogwarts—I was sorted into Slytherin, thank Merlin!—but I soon became acquainted with my brother's habits. He hung out with a small group of third-years who became increasingly known for always being present where trouble occurred. In the beginning, I think they were simply bored kids with an attraction to mischief. They would come from whatever they were doing to witness it with gleaming eyes. Over the years, they began to create that mischief themselves until they no longer had to seek it out; it followed them around. They were four in all. Besides my brother there was a small, gangly boy named James. I knew from Sirius' stories that this was his best mate. I couldn't for the life of me see why; James was a bland, loud-mouthed kid who was desperate for attention. It was no surprise that he attracted a couple of shy bottom-feeders—the other two members of the clan were a poor, malicious fat kid and an even poorer???—but Sirius ought to have been way out of his league. I'll never understand what held those four boys, as different from each other as it seemed possible to be, together, but it must have been something strong.

September 13th, 1973

Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry

James was just telling me about the new broom he'd gotten, the one he was going to use to try out for the Quidditch team—a spot for a Chaser had just opened up with the graduation of our best player—when we all heard a shriek accompanied by the familiar sound of someone falling to the ground, books and parchment flying in every direction, inkwell splattering. I almost didn't have to turn around to know that it was Peter. He'd stayed behind in the classroom to clean up the mess he had inadvertently made, and now he had undoubtedly been running to catch up with us.

I turned around. It was him, all right. He lay prostate on his stomach, eyes still squeezed shut, mouth twisted into a frozen grimace. His stuff was sprawled out all over the floor and several older Ravenclaws stood nearby, giggling. It would seem one of them had "accidently" put his foot out as Peter came barreling out of the stairwell. Remus was already quietly gathering Peter's things. A couple Slytherins who had witnessed the whole thing picked up Peter's inkwell and tossed it at Remus. "Here, did you want this?" they called, smirking as the ink splashed out all over Remus' robes and hands. Beside me, I felt James stiffen. He marched up to Peter, looked the Ravenclaws straight in the eye and said, "You think you're real jokers, eh?"

"What's it to you, short stuff?" The Ravenclaws were at least fifth- or sixth-years and most of them towered over James. Hell, even I towered over James this year. His growth spurt seemed slow in coming. And to tell the truth, he was more than a little touchy about it.

"Oh, ok," he sputtered, trying to keep his cool. "I see. Ok. I can take a joke." Calmly, but with tight lips and a clenched jaw, he smiled at the Ravenclaws. Peter, by this time, was struggling to regain his composure. I went over to help him brush off. Remus gave him his things back. Kids were always picking on Peter. They thought he was a loser and an idiot. Well, they weren't all wrong, but there was a lot more to Pete than met the eye. I knew. I had seen it. He just didn't flaunt it all over the place so most people didn't realize it was there. I had a sort of respect for him in that sense.

"But you know," James was saying to the older students. "You did it all wrong."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah." The short, skinny boy pulled himself up to his full height and swung his head nonchalantly. "Sticking out your foot to trip somebody is the oldest, lamest trick in the book. If you have to do it, at least do it with some originality." The older boys looked as though they were going to spit out some retort, but James continued on in a calm, inoffensive voice. "You chose a good position, but you didn't fully utilize your assets." He sounded like a professor. Some of the kids were exchanging glances and raising eyebrows. A group of curious students coming out of other classrooms had gathered to see what was going on. The power of curiosity and novelty is amazing. You wouldn't believe how many people you can manipulate simply by appealing to their base imaginations.

James continued, "you should have done it like this, if I might make a suggestion." He waved to Peter. "Peter, if you would return to your earlier position at the bottom of the stairs?" Peter threw me a questioning glance, but I was beginning to catch on. I put on a snobbish look and waved him irritatedly towards James. He obeyed. "Now," James said as Peter took up his place on the lowest step. "If you would have looked about you, you would see these narrow hallways are the perfect place to set up a little spill, if you'll excuse the pun." So saying, he muttered, "Aquaro" and turned his wand into a fountain. Water sprayed from the top, gushing forth, and a rain of droplets fell on some of the spectators, including the Ravenclaws. They bristled, and James stepped back. "Sorry," he said.

He aimed the flow of water at the hallway floor, creating a huge puddle within seconds. Remus carefully made a low-level shield with his wand to prevent the water from simply flowing away down the hall while I inconspicuously sidled up to the Ravenclaws and melted into the spectators behind them. "To let him trip and fall into a puddle would have been a big step up from your prank," James lectured. "But even then, might it not be even better to freeze the water…" Here he cast Glacius on the puddle, turning it into a long, oddly-shaped sort of ice rink. Remus coughed discreetly which meant he had spotted a professor coming this way. James stepped it up a notch. "Once you've turned the hallway into a sort of ice slide, you could then trip your victim, causing him to fall on the ice and slide all the way down the hallway, possibly until smashing into the wall, with the added benefit that anyone who tries to help him or pick up his things would probably slip on the ice as well. In fact the whole hallway might become one huge mass of slipping, sliding chaos. Sort of like this."

The whole time, James had positioned himself beside Peter, as if he really meant to test out his hypothesis on his mate, and now all eyes went to the hapless blond third-year. In reality, it was I who acted. I heaved myself against the Ravenclaws with all my might, causing them to stumble forward. One foot slipping on the ice was all it took. The boy grabbed at his mates, causing one of them to go down with him. Then I kicked the backs of the other boys' knees and they fell forward too.

Of course, now the hallway was already a mess, kids were shouting, and the professor's cries could be heard as he bore down on us. There would be a lot of trouble, that was for sure. I could already hear the word "detention" echoing off the walls. It was their only weapon, this threat of detention. As if it was a serious threat! James and I had practically gotten to know each other in detention. We had formed our club in detention. It was in a detention session, hand-copying chapters from Atlantis: Fall of a civilization, that I first jumped atop a desk and declared that we ought to join together and fight, to protest the current state of affairs, and assert our rights as students. There is no compromise, and some things are worth dying for. Freedom is one of those things. And I'd be damned before I bowed to the power of the so-called elite. I would fight them hand to hand if it came to it. All power to the people!