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"Oh, bollocks!"
As soon as the world stopped spinning and his vision cleared, Remus kicked the ground with feeling, stubbing his toe painfully on a tuft of grass. It didn't help -- it never did -- and the green and gold plains around him remained unchanged. The lodge and the watering hole were nowhere to be seen.
He shaded his eyes and squinted into the brilliant sunlight. There were no landmarks as far as he could see, unless he counted the impressive conical pile of erumpent dung about twenty feet ahead.
A rambling explanation about ley lines and magical forces and animal magnetism and mystical thingummies echoed in his mind, but he hadn't really been listening, and it didn't seem to matter anyway. All it meant was that he had no idea whatsoever where he was. He could be in Uganda, for all he knew, a prospect that wasn't nearly as exciting as it should have been, though he was sure Uganda was a very nice place, all things considered.
Remus pocketed his wand and turned around, scanning the horizon hopefully. Then he stopped.
After a few very confused seconds of staring through spindly legs at the vista beyond, Remus craned his head upward and met the creature's dark-eyed gaze.
"Oh," Remus said. "Hullo there."
The giraffe twitched an ear but did not respond.
It was standing very close to him. No more than ten feet away, he guessed, so close that he could smell its warm, musky scent and hear it breathing through its ridiculous nostrils. He had to crane his head upward to see its head. It gazed down at him with a bored expression, flicking its ears lazily to chase flies away from its knobby horns.
"I'm terribly sorry," Remus went on. He took a polite step back.
The giraffe stepped forward.
"I do beg your pardon--"
Then he saw the others.
About fifteen giraffes stood nearby, staggered in two rows of tall, narrow sentries against the sunlit plain, forming a half-circle before him.
Every one of them was looking at him.
Remus stepped back again. The giraffe stepped forward again.
A second later, so did the others.
"Look here," Remus began.
The giraffes stepped forward again. He could hear the grass crackling beneath their hooves. Their eyes blinked; their ears twitched.
Several thoughts crowded into Remus' mind as he reached into his pocket for his wand. He certainly hadn't been standing there long enough for more than a dozen giraffes to sneak up on him; they did seem quite a bit larger in person than in the picture books; he had never before worried about being mistaken for a tall, stringy meal of grass before but there was a first time for everything; none of the books had even mentioned giraffes as a danger and who'd ever heard of synchronized stalking giraffes, anyway?
"You should know," Remus said, drawing his wand very slowly from his pocket, "I am a carnivore. A werewolf. Very ferocious. Large teeth."
Unimpressed, the nearest giraffe bent toward him, stretching its head and neck forward, opening its mouth and extending its long purple tongue.
With a strangled yelp, Remus whipped his wand from his pocket, stumbled backward, tripped over the grass, fell on his bum, and Disapparated.
The ground beneath him shifted from hard earth to even harder tile, and he looked up to find himself in the lobby of the Lodge. He picked himself up quickly, brushing off his trousers, and looked around.
"Lost?"
It was one of the safari guides -- they all looked alike, he could never remember their names -- leaning on the reception desk and grinning.
Remus shrugged casually. "Just a bit."
"You'll get used to it," the guide said, nodding sagely.
Remus turned to leave, then paused. Looking back at the guide, he said, "There were giraffes."
The guide's grin vanished and his eyebrows disappeared under the brim of his hat. "Is that so?" he asked, pushing himself away from the counter.
"Yes...they're not dangerous, are they?"
"Giraffes? Oh, no," the guide answered quickly. "No, no, not at all. They're just...maybe a little...well, you see...Didn't they warn you about the giraffes, up at the preserve?"
Remus quashed the familiar annoyance and forced a smile. "No. I'm afraid they neglected to mention the giraffes."
"Ah. Well. Hmmm." The guide frowned thoughtfully. He tucked his hands into his pockets, took them out, removed his hat, put it back on. "Well. Be sure to ask them. Lovely talking to you!" With a spastic arm motion that might have been a wave or might have been a gesture to ward against evil, the guide spun on his heels and dashed from the room.
Remus stared after him for a moment, then shook his head and sighed. He walked across the lobby to the front door, through the potted plants and around the colourful magical fountain, feeling only vaguely guilty for tracking mud on the spotless tile.
In front of the lodge, in the long shadows of the manicured trees, he decided to walk back to the plantation. There was only about an hour before sundown and somebody had spotted a lion on the road earlier in the day, but he wasn't going to take any chances by Apparating again.