Harry Potter Fanfics

Ephemeral Oblivion

Title: ephemeral oblivion
Author: qrcngs
Site: Archive of Our Own
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34499023

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Speed.

If one were to ask James Potter how he would describe his life in one word, this would always be his answer. Why someone would ever ask him that, he didn't know. But he envisioned it. More than once.

It was what his mind was doing practically on its own, at any time. He couldn't think of a time when this was not the default setting off his brain, something it was doing in the background when kept busy or as the first and foremost task when bored; the envisioning.

Though the question about his life's description was one of the few he rather liked. In his head the question would fall without any context to any conversation. There would be a pause and then someone would repeat these words. "How would you describe your life in one word?" The sentence would rarely come from a specific person in his life. The person would be as incoherent as the conversation in which they would appear. He wouldn't even pause. "Speed." It was a definite answer. One he was sure of, in his hundreds of times of the envisioned conversation. He just thought it fitting.

His first memory was of him running around his parents' house chasing their cat. There was no buildup in that memory either. It began with him already in his highest possible pace as a 3 year-old. He also thought this to be adequate for everything that came after. Picking up new activities he didn't want to learn, to start with a slow walk. He wanted to know, to begin with a sprint.

But life wasn't like that. He learnt that quickly, when mounting his first broom, not a children's toy, but the one he nicked from the garden's hut, unused by his father for years. Out of the shed, through the door and against the nearest tree in the yard behind his parent's mansion. Four seconds long was this glorious experience. Then the four became eleven, when he mounted it again, directly after falling off the first time. Eleven became twenty, which became almost a minute and so on. By the end of his first day he could control his broom begrudgingly to hover above the ground under his father's supervision who, after the first noise in the garden, found his son lying next to his old broom. The duration on top of the broom with the speed James so desired was greatly dependent on the length of a straight line his route could be. For the next few weeks, rather months, which felt to James like years, time spent on solid ground and in the air became almost equal. Even after weeks, he was still pushing himself to be faster, to reach the highest speed the old and shabby broom could offer. This was the boundary he was gravely annoyed by, set by given aspects, seemingly unchanging with time. This was meant to be a description he would often used in his desire to be faster, to be better; limited by the static world around him.

Learning to fly was how his spring and summer after his sixth birthday was spent.

Thinking back to it, this timeframe was probably why flying was one of the very few things he could use to clear his head.

No not clear. Calm. Bring down the heat. At least a little bit. Most of the time.

After the days became shorter, the weather worse, a six year-old James Potter had to be busied with something else. With nothing else to do, he often looked to his parents for inspiration. Knowing their child and his probable obsession with Quidditch in the future after the forced pause during the cold months, they promised a new broom if he learnt how to read until Christmas. Bold James Potter grabbed the biggest tome in the nearest bookshelf in the library, goal in mind. Randomly opening up a chapter about vanishing spells in Traveling with Transfiguration: Helpful tips by William Shafiq he recognized some words on the page. Being confused by everything between and or the, he joined his mother in the den and asked for a summary of the chapter's content, only to compare with his thoughts of course.