Seven Days in June

June 15^th, 2005

The burial vaults under St Michael's Church were little more than dark, damp tunnels that had been haphazardly dug into the ground; it seemed strange that they should once have been prestigious resting places for the highborn and wealthy. The painted wooden coffins stood in orderly rows with just enough space to walk between them; they looked solid even after centuries under the earth.

Harry followed the guide, who was telling the little group of tourists about the history of the baroque vaults in a tone that made it clear he had recited the same text hundreds of times before. Harry let his mind wander; he had his own reasons for being here, and art history had very little to do with them.

The guide rounded a corner, and the tourists who trudged after him gasped: in the room they'd entered, the lids of the coffins had been removed, and their contents were illuminated by the gloomy light of the little lanterns along the wall. Most of the coffins were filled with nothing but crumbling dust, but over in the corner, there were a few which contained something that looked almost like... mummies.

The guide gave them an ironic smile, as if he wanted to let them know how pathetic he found the morbid curiosity that made them rush over and gape at the contents of the coffins in rapt fascination. In the same bored voice as before, he started talking about underground water currents, their energy causing the bodies of those interred above to mummify instead of rotting; he pointed out the body of a man who had been run over and killed by a cart wheel which had crushed his chest, then the corpse of a young woman who had died from renal failure while giving birth, her dried-out belly rounded and her yellow-brown face bloated for eternity.

While the others stared and bemoaned the fact that it was much too dark to take proper pictures, Harry stepped up to a wall and cautiously put his hand on the clammy stone. The soft tingling under his palm confirmed his suspicions; he closed his eyes and concentrated.

Energy. The Muggle guide had got that much right, but it had nothing to do with the water. What Harry felt, what had kept rot away from these bodies, were the remnants of magic. It was not a kind of magic he was familiar with; it was old and faded, too weak to be channelled and used, almost too far gone to be perceived by anyone but those who knew what to look for - and most certainly irretrievable. This was no place where magic thrived; it had died here a long time ago and had left nothing but lingering echoes behind.

Taking a deep, relieved breath, Harry backed away from the wall and gladly followed the guide, who was ushering them out. He was eager to go back towards the sunlight, into the streets of a city where the memories of dead magic had sunken into the soil without leaving any trace in the world above.

He had been right to come to Vienna.