Hiding {Marauders AU}

Chapter 2

The first night wasn't anything out of the norm, the six abnormal siblings sat at their respective tables, some more welcoming than others but by now the school was used to it. James, Sirius, Remus and Peter watched the siblings, each watching a different table as planned.

James watching Zared at the Gryffindor table, honestly watching him it was surprising to the younger Gryffindor that he didn't have any friends. Zared was smiling and laughing while talking to people and enjoying the food. He even celebrated each time a first year was sorted into his house. James just couldn't understand, why did this guy seem so chill with everyone and yet didn't have any friends other than his siblings. Was he pretending to be nice? But why would he do that, James couldn't see a point to it, but noted it in case Remus or someone could figure it out.

Sirius was watching the Hufflepuff table, which meant he was on Adonis duty. When he first saw the boy he was taken aback as he hadn't really looked at him before. Now, he could clearly see why he heard girls talk about him along with Sirius. Unlike Sirius, however, Adonis didn't mess around and noticeably didn't let girls shamelessly flirt with him, which Sirius didn't understand, why not let the girls fawn over you? He watched as the fifth year Hufflepuff sat between people and smiled and laughed along with conversations, yet never really joining in. Sirius noted how the boy seemed to shy away from anyone touching him, he wondered what that was about, maybe he was a germaphobe.

Remus watched the blue and silver table, specifically the two at the end who seemed to avoid being with anyone else. They sat next to each other not across like one normally would in a group of two, but maybe that wasn't as weird as it seemed. He noticed how the girl didn't talk much, only a few words, while the boy seemed to be having conversation with her. The girl didn't even look in the direction of anyone other than her younger brother, while the boy would smile at anyone who passed or anyone who was near, even waving at a few. He thought it was weird that the two were so different and yet seemed so close but this wasn't new information.

This left Peter on Slytherin duty, mostly because he was the most unsuspicious of the four, and if any of the others were eyeing the green table it would give off the wrong idea. Peter wasn't as good at observing as the other three mostly because he thought it was weird they were watching them if they wanted to be friends with them. He did note that the two girls sat across from each other, surrounded by housemates and yet didn't really converse with them. Sure, they weren't as cold as the Ravenclaw girl but they weren't as open as their brother, the older girl didn't mind having conversations with others more like her brothers. The younger girl just sort-of smiled but didn't engage.

What the boys didn't know was that they're observing didn't go unseen, to normal eyes it wasn't noticeable as they were good at not being obvious. But the Jones siblings weren't normal, and every single one of them knew they were being watched. The good news was, they were used to being watched so they didn't make it known they were aware, they just continued as normal. They did, however, note who was watching them, and made note to watch them too.

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It was now a month or so into the school year and the Marauders thought they had done enough watching. The boys had seen Zared in the common room with a few other lions and were welcomed into the conversation. They found it easy to talk to the eldest Jones and enjoyed his company, so they thought that becoming friends would be easy. Oh how wrong they were, Zared had no issues with them, they seemed to be fun and laid back, so why not be friends. But friends to the Marauders and the Jones' were two very different things, but the Marauders didn't need to know that.

Finally one morning, the boys wanted to meet the rest of the crew, they expected that if they could get along with Zared they could with the others as well. I mean they have to be somewhat similar in personality, otherwise how could the group function, right? The boys had arrived at the Gryffindor table before Zared, but some of his siblings were already seated with the Hufflepuffs, specifically the four youngest, the two sets of twins. So when Zared walked in and started towards his siblings, they boys saw their opening.