Padfoot's Rival

Disclaimer: Last time I checked, I still owned nothing.

Chapter 2

Hagrid's snores had filled the hut (and probably the whole Forbidden Forest). Last night, he wasn't so loud, Angela thought. Maybe it was due to the potion she had seen Remus pouring secretly into his butterbeer earlier that evening. Stolen from old Slughorn's supplies, most likely. She knew what was going to happen and certainly was looking forward to it - Fang's constant attention was more than she could bear. Last night, she had not dared to fall asleep, fearing that he would come to her again and then....

She shivered with her whole white, furry body. She was not disappointed. Muffled voices came from outside, then the door was pushed ajar, but nobody entered - it was as if the person who had opened it was a ghost...or a human under an Invisibility Cloak.

"Good, he's asleep, come on!" came James' voice. He took his hood off and became a disembodied head.

Sirius, Remus, and Peter came in and went straight to her, though Sirius did not miss the chance to throw a fierce glance at the sleeping Fang. Empress grinned - she could bet her Charms textbook that it was Sirius' jealousy that had led them to a rescue mission. He could not have left her alone with her newest admirer, even if the admirer in question was a dog. Well, technically, they weren't alone, but Hagrid did not count, because he was practically dying to play matchmaker for the two of them. She - and Fang! Her ears drooped at that thought.

"What's wrong?" Sirius asked. "Are you okay?"

She gave an affirmative growl and nodded.

"Good. Now, we're going to sneak you into the castle. You're going to stay in our dormitory until you regain your human shape, all right?"

She nodded again.

"Come on."

Unfortunately, when she tried to stand up and walk, her legs failed her and she fell on the rug with a yelp. Remus knelt next to her and inspected her broken paw. "There is no way that she could make it to the castle," he said to the others, and turned to face her again. "We'll have to carry you; there is no other way."

James opened his mouth to object that carrying a full-sized wolf was an impossible task, but one look at Sirius' determined face made him check himself. There was no way that Padfoot would leave Empress anywhere in Fang's reach. That stupid dog, he thought, unsure of which dog he was referring to.

Whoever hasn't carried a she-wolf under an Invisibility Cloak late in the night through a forest knows nothing, James thought later when it was his and Sirius' turn again to take her. Peter was already rubbing his tired arms, and even Remus' ever-so-carefully preserved face was showing signs of exhaustion.

"Merlin, she's heavy," Sirius groaned before suddenly yelping. "Ouch! That was my ear, you - "

"Shhh," James hissed. "Cry louder, if you can, I don't think the Centaurs heard you yet."

"She almost bit my ear off!"

"Well, you did say that she was heavy." James took a mental note to use in his future experience with women, and specifically one read-head. Never call a woman heavy, even if she really is.

How they managed to reach the castle, they could not say. Finally, they managed to enter through one of the secret passages. They abandoned the Invisibility Cloak that made their movement even slower and headed for the Gryffindor Tower. In their haste, they did not even notice that a painting that was usually empty now had four people in it. The portraits hardly waited for them to pass though the corridor before bursting out laughing.

"Oh Merlin, did you see his face?" the brown-haired man said. "I swear, I thought he was going to just drop her and leave."

"Four boys and a wolf," the dark-haired woman shook her head. "Honestly, I expected better from one of my brightest students."

"She can't be that clever if she's gotten involved with a stupid Gryffindor," the other man, this one dark-haired and dark-eyed, snickered.

"Hey! I heard that!" the other man exclaimed indignantly.

The other woman in the picture - a great beauty with blond hair and soft blue eyes, laughed. "You were meant to, Godric. Salazar is just teasing you."

"No, I'm not," Salazar Slytherin insisted. "She could have done better. She isn't very clever, no, but Merlin, isn't she beautiful! Those dark eyes, those graceful legs, that soft white fur...." he continued dreamily.

The two women laughed. Godric Gryffindor only snorted. "Look, Salazar, I became reconciled with your obsession with that girl that is five hundred years your junior, but those praises to her wolf-form, they're...it's...." He could not seem to find the proper words to express his indignation. "It is just sick!"

Meanwhile, the four boys had finally reached the dormitory where they placed Empress on Sirius' bed and collapsed where they were - on their beds, on a chair, James even fell on top of the heap of his dirty clothes in his quarter of the room and fell asleep instantly.

"We've sent Dumbledore an owl, supposedly by your parents, informing him that you had to leave because of family matters and that you'd come back in a few days," Remus informed the she-wolf from the chair he had slumped in earlier, without opening his eyes. "We hope that in a few days, you'll be human again. Until then, we'll have to hide you here. We're going to sneak food for you from the kitchen, and about sleeping arrangements...uh, what I mean is that...you see...."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Remus, just spill it!" said Sirius from Remus' bed. "What he means is that you'll have to sleep in my bed."

Empress cocked her head to one side and gave him a bewildered look that he translated as "Well, I'm already here, so what's the matter?"

"No, no, you don't understand," he said impatiently. "I'm not giving you my bed. What I mean is that you'll have to sleep in it while I'm sleeping in it as well."

She whined softly and shook her head. "C'mon, girl, it isn't a big deal. After all, you're a wolf now, so what does it matter? Besides, where else can I go? Peter moves in bed, James snores, and even you aren't cruel enough to make poor Remus lose half his bed to me so soon after the full moon, right?" He touched his bleeding ear very carefully. "Or maybe you are," he added darkly.

Remus opened his eyes and went to Sirius to check on his wound. "It's nothing serious, so stop playing, Padfoot. Now, Empress, be a good girl and take him for me, will you? Because I'm not going to share my bed with Sirius when he's in a bad mood - he won't let me sleep all night!"

She whined softly and reluctantly. Groggily, Sirius left Remus' bed and went to his own, where he helped Empress lie comfortably and then lay next to her with his boxers only, trying not to touch her because he knew it would embarrass her. Besides, she had bitten his ear! He had no desire to touch her right now. Unfortunately, the bed was not big enough for a she-wolf and a boy to lie apart from each other. After several minutes of squirming, they both came to conclusion that maybe they should give up on their pride in the name of their comfortable rest. Sirius came closer to her and placed his head on her shoulder. She put her healthy paw on his back and sighed contentedly. Sirius smiled in her fur. She was so soft and warm, and surprisingly comfortable, and he suddenly felt very sleepy. The last thing he felt before sleep got the better of him was her tongue licking at his still bloody ear.

The next day, another one of the inhabitants of the only dormitory in Hogwarts that had a wolf living in it also found out that the aforementioned wolf was very comfortable. This is how it happened: Sirius was in detention, Remus was at a Prefect meeting, Peter was off with his latest girlfriend, and James was bored. So bored, in fact, that he decided to go to the dormitory, take his Invisibility Cloak and go out with it in search of some mischief. But fate had other plans for him that night, or rather, a certain white she-wolf by the name of Empress, also known as Angela Fiona Peters, did. No sooner had he stepped in, he was met by a low whining coming from Sirius' bed. Frowning, he went there. "Empress? Are you feeling bad?"

She whined again and shook her head no.

"Are you hungry? Do you want me to sneak into the kitchens and get something for you?"

Another low whine.

"Then what do you want?"

Her eyes fell to the mess she herself had made on the floor next to the bed: dirty clothes, clean clothes, and books. Now, James understood. "You want a textbook to study for the exams?"

She nodded.

"Fine. Which one do you want? Charms? No, right, that's your best subject anyway. Let's see, then. Transfiguration? No? I know: Ancient Runes! See, I was right!"

He found the book and opened it for her, but it soon became clear that it was not what she wanted, or, at least, not all she wanted. "You want me to study along with you? No bloody way!"

She whined again and gave him the best puppy dog eyes he'd ever seen. Sirius would have to practice hard to master this look, James thought and, feeling like the biggest fool ever, sat next to her and read the same page that she was reading. Soon, he made the discovery that Sirius had made the night before: the bed was just not big enough for a human and a wolf to sit comfortably without being close to each other. He leaned against Empress and she hugged him by the shoulder because it was the only way they could both see the page that they were reading. Feeling in a joking mood, Angela huffed in James' untidy hair and he jumped with a yelp, but then he sat back down and laughed. "Merlin, you caught me off guard! You had my head quite warm, with that hot breath of yours!"

She huffed in his hair again, making him laugh.

The next moment, he howled with pain because Sirius was holding his hair in a death grip. Neither he nor Angela had seen him coming.

"How dare you! I thought you were head over heels for Evans, and the moment I turn my back, you hang out with my girlfriend, you bastard!" He tugged James' hair more furiously. "I'll make you bald, I swear!"

He shoved him aside and directed his yelling at the white she-wolf. "And you, you...don't know what to call you, you slut!" He grabbed a handful of her fur and tugged angrily; white hairs were left in his fist. "What were you doing, nuzzling his hair? I have nice hair, so if you want to nuzzle someone's hair, you're going to nuzzle mine! You poor whore, I'm going to pull all his hair out by the roots, and then you're going to...are you laughing at me? I'll kill you, if you're laughing at me, you hear me?!?!?!"

A. N. Well, what do you think? I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, but let me know!