September was by far Sirius' favorite month of the year. It was Autumn, really. The season brought a wealth of smells and sights that went far beyond the realm of conscious and strung up memories that had nothing to do with thinking and so much more to do with feeling. He couldn't explain it, and if he could he would never say it aloud for fear of being thought too emotional. The feel of the first crisp wind along his back made him smile a smile even in the darkest of times. September first, all those years ago, he was standing on a platform, his mother and father finally long gone, not to be seen for another year. He met James there, on the train, whirring through a countryside full of bright colors. Greens that refused to diminish despite the weather; golds falling through the air; a blue sky far brighter than it was at any other time in the year. No matter how many times the feeling of Autumn ran through his bones, how many times he picked one particular memory to roll around his mind like a sweet, they wouldn't lose their pull on him until that first day when crisp turned to cold and Winter came upon him.

He stood now on the back porch of a shack in the middle of Anywhere, England: He wasn't even exactly sure where he was. There were trees lining the yard, leaving just feet of space before the woods that were beyond the shack. Leaves and bits of rubbish covered what space there was, and even on into the forest Sirius could see misshapen lumps far too unnatural be to part of the woods themselves. Behind him he could hear low murmuring, every once in a while an outraged outburst, and he knew he should be inside, that he should be concerned with the plans being made and the discussions taking place. But it was the second week of Autumn, and he hadn't allowed himself a moment outside since he'd felt the first cool wind, smelt the smell of leaves as they slowly died away, the fresh earth and clean air. It more than anything else was able to pull at his conscious, beg his mind to let go of the present and fall back into yesteryear, when he would be standing outside of a castle at this time of night, reveling in the promise of another year spent ignoring every class and ruling the school as if it was his and only his, and the students around him were nothing but players in a game where he was the king. And he always won. September gave him the promise of leaving a house in which he was the pawn, the fool, the one that was disposable. September meant he was the one who decided who lost, and who got to hang on just a little while longer.

September was a promise of hope, and had been for years. This September, Sirius stood on a forlorn porch, the first time in over seven years that he wasn't outside of a castle at this time. Every year that hope had grown smaller; every year had brought more problems, more of a need to fall into the past and the memories rather than focus on the present, and the future. The low hymn of bugs and soft, consistent cry of distant owls made it hard for Sirius to decide what he should feel. He had an entire room full of family behind him, just inside. People who'd been with him since that first day he'd stepped onto the Hogwart's Express, who'd stayed by him through drunken fathers and wretched mothers. A brother, a real brother, who had taken him for everything he was without asking for anything changed. But ahead of him he saw black, nothing but black.

It wasn't until the door slammed behind him that he realized the pattern of sound in the back of his mind was his name, and it wasn't a memory. The sound was so abrupt in cool silence that he lost his breath for several moments, his heart threatening to jump out of his chest and dance around the porch and into the woods.

"Sirius!" Lily scorned, her hands on her hips, hair flying around her as if she'd been running. Her chest was heaving as fast as his.

He blinked several times before regaining composure, facing Lily with a determined air of pride as if he hadn't shot into the air like a frightened cat. "Yes, Lily?"

"We've been calling you for ages! You didn't say a word when you left-- didn't say where you were going or anything! We thought -- "

He dropped his shoulders, hanging his head as he interrupted her. "I know -- I'm sorry. I got lost in my thoughts, I guess."

Lily bit her lip, leaning against the pane by the window. "Peter still hasn't showed up. I'm just nervous. I don't like being here, I feel like we're sitting ducks without Dumbledore here."

That caught him off guard, but before he had time to question where Dumbledore had gone, Remus came through the door, looking just as disheveled as Lily had been.

"Here -- they're out here! Dammit Sirius, what the hell are you thinking?" He ran his hands through his hair, his eyes traveling to the skies above before sweeping the yard and the surrounding woods. Sirius noted that Lily hadn't, but he couldn't tell that to her now. Perhaps he could ask James to tell her; she never was good at taking reprimand from anyone but him.

Remus herded him back inside, swearing much more fluently than he ever had as he gave the same speech Sirius had heard one hundred times over about new locations. Don't leave the designated area alone. Don't leave the surrounding areas completely without giving notification. Don't perform spells of an unusually large caliber of magic inside the designated area and surrounding areas. Don't do anything but pretend you're paying attention to the plans while running all the possible ways you and your loved ones could die while you carry out the plans.

They were to attack. It was one of only a handful of times they were taking action rather than waiting to perform recon. Dumbledore had done nothing but look at the one who had asked where the inside information had come from; usually, he'd given a poorly contrived and cryptic answer as to how he got his information, and the way he'd avoided it completely this time made Sirius think that the Headmaster hadn't done anything he was proud of to learn of the attack Death Eaters were planning on a mostly-magical community somewhere to the north of London. The Death Eaters weren't moving until sunrise, but Dumbledore had set many Order members at nearby locations, waiting. Waiting to call in the troops to risk their lives again. Waiting until they could call the ones who would be trading their lives for the civilians. The students, the parents, the daughters. The nieces and the nephews and the Professors and shop keeps. They might live, but their lives would only remain because their death was taken by another, a person willing to die.

September had never meant death. September meant hope; it held promise. The promise of a better day come tomorrow, not traded lives and death at sunrise.

Sirius was given an entire kettle of coffee to himself. He wasn't paying attention, wasn't listening. James had left as soon as he'd been found; they were worried about Peter. He was too, but Peter had become more distant lately. His mother was constantly worried sick; she'd tried to send an owl to him and had nearly compromised one of their locations. In Sirius' opinion, it was safer if Peter stayed away, or sent his mother somewhere far away so that he wouldn't be bothered.

Lily was a presence at his place in the corner, a far enough distance from the huddled Order members that he could hear but not be seen with his gaze drifting away. She laid her hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently every time his breathing became too steady, too comfortable; when his eyes would lose all facades of focus and drift into the past, when September meant the smell of the forest and the sound of the branches swaying softly as he ran through the trees, liquid to the earth, dodging branches and roots in the ground as if he knew every step just before he took it. He had years of practice; years to learn the bends and paths of the forest while chasing a werewolf, a rat and a stag. He hadn't turned form just to run, just to feel the forest become a part of his paws and his eyes in longer than he could remember.

James returned around three in the morning. Lily left Sirius with nothing but an apologetic look and another squeeze to his shoulder. He asked Sirius to run him through what he'd missed and received a look equivalent of a sigh, but it seemed Sirius wasn't even quite up to that much movement. He'd been awake for what seemed like days. Sleep came in spurts of ten or fifteen minutes, never long enough to feel just a shadow of rest. But someone would live tomorrow because of it. Someone, tomorrow, would live to see another day of the crisp September skies, feel the wind tickle their nose with scents that played along the skin like notes of music, each curve and bend another note that would play until all the memories they had had been played through their mind, rolled around like their favorite sweet. And then it would begin again, and September would bring them the promise of hope, and the promise of tomorrow.

At four thirty a condensed version of the three day's worth of planning and discussing had been repeated by nearly every one of the Order members at the shack in Anywhere, England. Sirius stood attentive, having pushed away his thoughts and emotions until they were nothing but echos, buzzing behind the action ahead of him. The only thought he'd allow to linger was that he'd rather trade with another his life than trade with them his September.