I remember crying. & the cat was very scary, but I didn't read Harry until I was older so it's hard to compare.
'Dirty Girls'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Is Watership Down as scary as Harry Potter?
Given that the book ends with the most adorable and lovable bunny of them all going CATATONIC, I say yes.
Remember, Richard Adams wrote Watership, in case you were gettin' him confused with Douglas.
I first read The Mists of Avalon around that age, or a little older. I loved it then, though I don't really remember how scary it was.
How about Wrinkle in Time and all its sequels?
I don't know how scary Harry Potter is, but I was 10 or 11 the first time I read Watership Down. I don't remember anything about it being scary. Sad sometimes, sure, but there aren't evil powers and monsters and ghosts and so on. I suppose it depends what in particular she finds scary. It's certainly got bad things happening to animals, but so did half of the books I read at that age, so I don't think it stood out.
I read a Wrinkle in Time when I was in 5th or 6th grade and it BLEW.MY.MIND. I think that is definitely age appropriate for good readers.
The sequel (A Wind in the Door) is a bit more advanced. I don't think it is suitable for younger than about 7th grade, if memory serves. The science in the book confused me until I read it again in high school.
Swiftly Tilting Planet is advanced. High school for sure IMO.
Wrinkle in Time was wunderbar, but I seem to remember it as really really scary. One of the few books that ever terrified me. Beautiful, Beautiful writing though. Marvelous characters. May be Definitely a favorite.
Wrinkle in Time scared the crap out of me too.
Mercedes Lackey! Anne McCaffrey! C'mon, all those fantasy ones that you loooooooved at that age?
Or, Tamora Pierce (definitely not very scary)
Yeah, Wrinkle is scary, although Abby just finished reading it and loved it. Swiftly Tilting Planet is my favorite of the original trilogy.