Jungle Fever

Severus squeezed his eyes tightly shut against the glaring sun.

"Ugh..." he groaned to himself, groggily. "I'm cursing whoever opened my curtains this morning."

As Severus slowly came to his senses, the memories of the previous day came flooding back to him. And speaking of flooding, he suddenly noticed just how wet he was. Sitting up quickly, Severus stared in confusion at his surroundings. He was half-submerged in a lazily flowing river in what looked like a jungle, his wand a few metres away. Uncaringly crushing the delicate undergrowth that covered the forest floor, Severus dragged himself out of the dark, murky stream and stood up, still gazing at the surrounding jungle. Enormous green leaves nearly blocked the sky from view, only letting a few sharp beams of light filter through onto the forest floor.

"Lupin? Black? Are you here?" Severus yelled, unsure how well the sound would carry through the dense trees. "Hello? Lupin? Black?" he called again.

"Severus?" A voice responded from not too far away, sounding disoriented and tired.

Severus looked around. "Lupin? Is that you? Where are you?"

But before Remus could answer there was a loud crack and a sharp yell. Severus looked up in time to see Remus seconds before he crashed down on top of him in a flurry of leaves and twigs.

After a few seconds of pained silence, Severus growled, "Lupin, would you kindly remove yourself from my back?"

"Sorry, Severus. The tree branch broke." Remus said sheepishly, as he stood. Severus sighed in relief as the weight lifted off his ribcage.

"You're a lot heavier than you look, Lupin. What've you been eating? Bricks?"

Remus smirked slightly and looked up at down at Severus's soaked robes. "Yeah well, at least I didn't wet myself. Were you really that scared?"

Severus scowled. "Oh, you're hilarious. Could we have this battle of wits later? Say, when we're not in a jungle?" he said, retrieving his wand. "Go find your mutt, I'll be leaving."

Remus started to protest, but Severus cut him off: "I'll bring you back a portkey."

"You expect me to believe that?" Lupin said, sceptically, "How do I know you won't just leave and conveniently forget us?

Severus glared at him, "I suppose you'll just have to trust me."

Scowling, Remus turned and stalked into the dense, green jungle, calling for Sirius.

"Sirius! Are you there? Sirius?"

A tired groan came from nearby. Avoiding the sharp thorns as he stepped through a grove of saplings, Remus finally spotted Sirius lying in a pile of mud. Worried, he ran over to help, but recoiled suddenly.

It wasn't mud that Sirius was lying in.

Sirius coughed slightly. "Hello Moony, I'm lying in dung."

Remus suppressed a laugh: "I noticed."

Taking Sirius's arm gingerly, Remus hoisted him out of the putrid-smelling muck.

"Snape already Disapparated. He's bringing back a portkey." Remus told him as they made their way back to the clearing.

Sirius scoffed, "Right. You really think that psychopathic bat's going to come back?"

"Really, Black. You think so little of me?"

Remus turned, surprised to see Severus back so quickly.

"That didn't take long. Where's the portkey?" Remus looked at Severus again. "And why are you still wet?"

Severus looked distinctly frustrated and confused. "I couldn't Disapparate; I couldn't perform a drying charm; I couldn't even levitate a stone! Something is wrong here."

Perplexed, Remus took out his own wand and pointed it at a nearby shrub. "Engorgio!"

A faint, low humming sound emitted from the wand, like an electrical generator shutting down, but the little tree remained the same size.

A worried expression flitted across Remus's face and he turned to Sirius.

"Sirius, would you transform?"

Sirius nodded and, after a moment, looked to Remus, slightly panicked.

"I can't. Something's absorbing the spell. I don't think we can't do magic here."

Nobody said anything in reply to his statement. In their silence, the sticky, humid air hummed and whispered with ghostly voices and suddenly the rainforest seemed much denser and darker; every plant, tree and drop of water pulsating with feral, malevolent magic, draining the energy of every spell and charm cast. The jungle was breathing, seeing and feeding as one.

This rainforest was alive.