It'd been a couple years and he really didn't fit half as well as he had. Harry gasped and scrunched down in his old hiding place between the shrubs and the wall. As Harry tugged it off one-handed, several cracks of apparition happened up at Number 4.
He pulled the cloak around his shoulders, inside out, damn it all. Jaw open just enough that Harry could see wicked long teeth, yeah, but its lips were all loose and happy, not tight and snarling. He looked back at the huge dog and blinked that it seemed to be laughing. Served the old bat right for talking about Harry's mum that way. There was a rope around her ankle when Harry dared a quick look her way, but nothing dangled from it, not even Uncle Vernon who'd tried to grab her when she started blowing up after dinner. Why didn't the thing just go away? Uncle Vernon was bellowing like a maniac just a few doors away while Aunt Marge shrieked as she floated up towards the sky. It didn't move at all as Harry carefully tugged his trunk further back towards the hollow between the shrubs and the wall he'd stopped at. Harry thought he heard the shuffle of a tail wagging for a moment, but it stopped as Harry dragged his invisibility cloak out and carefully, without looking, shut his trunk again.
It crouched low, its belly against the pavement. The huge dog-thing across the way next to Number Two's garage didn't growl.
SCORCH PET BATTLE PLUS
Well, that plus the rising growl that had started so low that it was like a lorry rumbling by two blocks off before rising to a rattle of doom that still showed up in Harry's nightmares. Those gleaming, quicksilver eyes were the only warning he'd gotten. The crouching… thing… across the way stared at Harry with gleaming eyes that reminded Harry of the time he'd come downstairs early in the morning and Ripper had gone at him. He held his wand low, at the ready, while his hand patted around in his open trunk for his invisibility cloak. The weight of Magic against my soul distorts my perceptions. It doesn't matter how often you say it, I will not agree that my duty to my family outweighs my right to live my life freely.