I'm not sure but I think there is in fact a way to give a non protagonist character a familiar.
I think it goes a little something like this:
Start a multiplayer game with your Mage/Thief as protagonist. Get past the intro sequence and then cast FindFamiliar and you should get your Cat(It is the right one for your alignment, right?). What you do now is export your character and save it as a characterfile.
Then, finally, you start up your multiplayer party again with your new improved Mage/Thief instead of your old one. You can just use the "multiplayer party screen" to put him into your party.
And if all goes well, your irritating ELf should now have a companion to take potshots at... [img]smile.gif[/img]
But keep in mind, I'm not sure if this will work. I haven't tried this myself (and Memnoch seems pretty sure too...). But let us know how it works out.
__________________
|