It's odd really. I should have been terrified. He was huge, as large as a draft horse. His fur was thick and blacker than the shadows. The only thing I could see clearly was his incredible green eyes. Anyone else would've run screaming, but not me. I just couldn't feel threatened by this behemoth predator.
The black panther seemed so human. His eyes were sad and haunted, but they held a strong sort of compassion. It was the compassion more than anything that kept me there.
He shifted. I gasped. His fur, though thick, was too short to completely hide the sickening scars that riddled his muscular body. Then I saw the blood. It was dried and scabbed, oozing were it was cracked. I don't know how I knew that he could understand me, but I did. I held my hand out and murmured "I can help you," as if he were a skittish kitten that couldn't kill me with one swipe with one of his massive paws.
Then, without warning, he simply dissolved into darkness. His compassion was gone. I whimpered, "Don't leave, don't leave, don't leave..." Then I screamed.
I sat bolt upright in bed, tears streaming down my face. I'd been having that dream for a week now, ever since Harry disappeared. Dumbledore's frantic. According to Severus, Voldemort doesn't know where he is either. Harry simply vanished, leaving nothing but a pool of blood behind.
Things are changing. No one completely trusts Dumbledore anymore and the lines between light and dark are blurring. I suspect Ron is abusing his girlfriend and my best friend, Hermione. Severus Snape has started coming by quite often, usually to chat with Hermione, though he denies it.
I get up and silently pad down the winding stairs to our admittedly large kitchen. Looking out the window over the sink, I sigh. But I am silent, like I have been since the Order found blood but no body.
Movement catches my eye. I know what it is. It isn't a giant panther. It isn't Harry. I break my silence, and shriek.
"DEATH EATERS!"
The fighting is amazingly chaotic. Severus has ditched his position with the Death Eaters to protect Hermione sense Ron has run off like the coward he really is. No one has died - yet.
Now that bitch, Bellatrix, is in front of me. We fight, screeching like felines the whole time. I hear my dad, Arthur, scream my name. I watch Bellatrix mouth that incantation that will end my life. I wait for it, but it never comes. My panther is here, but I'm not dreaming. He rips into the bitch, killing her instantly.
He comes toward me and nudges the backs of my knees with his black velvet nose. I sit obediently and he curls himself around me. He's warm and his fur is incredibly soft. But his scars are really there, along with the half-healed wound on his back; still scabbed over.
If a Death Eater dares come near us, he ends their life with one lazy swipe of his oversized paw.
I look into his huge emerald eyes, so full with sadness and compassion, and suddenly I know.
"Please don't leave, Harry," I beg him as I pressed myself closer to him, burying my face in that shadow black fur.