Atlantis

I don't own Draco and Ron, or anyone else you can clearly identify.

Author: Dimitri Aidan and Aloysha AKA Solis

Rating: R to NC-17, depending on the mood of those in charge.

Pairings: Draco/Ron, Dean/Seamus, Harry/Hermione, Snape/Remus.

Summery: What you are is everything you aren't. Ron simply was never who they thought he was. Stuck in a place they call Atlantis, he has only a mute, a manic, and the strangely flawed to help him through it.

Genre: Slash, Romance, Angst, Drama.

POV: This is told in…an interesting fashion. Everything is told from some undefined point in the future, as seen in Ron's opening 'letter'. There will be 'flashback' type journal entries from each boy through out the first few chapters, my way of catching you up to the point at which the story starts without any long drawn out explanations.

Notes: This was once 'Atlantis Keys' but it underwent an overhaul. It's set post war and it's depressing but maybe we'll see a happy ending. And, also, this will be updated depending on how it fares against my other Ron/Draco story in the boxing ring that is my mind. Seriously, one plot idea has to knock the other one out before I'll write it…

Oh, and I swear, last story I'm uploading... I'm going to go and finish stuff now.

Warnings: It's…Dark. Major Character Death, Character Bashing, Rape, Child Abuse, Torture…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Forward

Letter to the Reader

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I was, by most everyone's standards, a pretty average seventeen-year-old boy. Hell, even by my own standards, which had a low tolerance for strangeness (considering everything my best friend got me into, I was always sure to detect the first sign of things going out of control), I was pretty…normal.

Well, other than my abnormally large family. And famous best friend. And my other super genius Muggle-born best friend. And, arguably, evil-genius older twin brothers… And my other three older brothers, who were unique in their own ways. And my sister, who'd been possessed by an evil diary once…

Yeah, other than all of that…

In fact, it was because of all of that, that I was pretty average. Sure, I saw a lot of amazing things, but only because those around me were into amazing things. Left to my own devices I was a very normal kind of guy. No special talents, beyond being a wiz at chess. Boring almost…

Boring old me. I liked Quidditch, girls, and food, hated school and anything that involved work…

Pretty basic. Just like thousands of other boys in the Wizarding World. I was dependable that way…and in other ways, of course. But mostly you could always count on me to be sturdy and never changing…no big surprises with me.

I was just…Ron.

And one day I was to stand next to my best friends, after the Dark Lord had been put down again, and I'd have played some kind of mildly important part, concerning loyalty or friendship, and then life would go on.

Kind of like Draco Malfoy if you want to think of it that way. Draco was also a very unchanging person. He was a nasty little git, selfish and concerned with only himself. He had his lackeys do all of his work, while he just sat around and looked smug. He never changed.

He didn't need to. His position in life was already secured. He would go down in history as the blond Slytherin annoyance, son of a Deatheater, who eventually became a Deatheater himself, and raised his son to be the same. It was his family's legacy in a way.

His story had been written and finished long before he was even born.

Or Seamus Finnigan. He was destined to exist as background noise to those greater, to those who would write the story and shape the world. He was just a minor bit character, sometimes thrown in by some cosmic power to add a ripple or two in a great pond but, in a general sense, he was destined for nothing great. He'd probably get married, have some kinds, and die like the vast majority of people, without really having ever rocked the boat.

Dean Thomas was pretty much the same. He was quite, reserved and often overlooked. He too was just scenery, forgotten and left alone. If not for Seamus he'd be no one at all, but his best friend gave him a kind of definition throughout the years. He was the one in control, who kept Seamus under control, and he saw things that no one else really saw. He was one of the rare kind of people who liked to be hidden and never seen…

So it seems rather odd, considering this group, that anything of actual interest would have happened. A boring Wizarding teen, two who would barely amount to extras in a play or movie, and finally a rich, pampered evil son of a Deatheater.

Our fates were in stone, and none of us would really impact things beyond the scopes of their set roles. Life had dealt them a very particular and careful hand, and they were never to stray from the path. They had little reason to; everything was straightforward and simple.

Nothing would ever change.

We all were who we always were.

So why a story about us? Why delve beneath the surface of those who weren't heroes and wouldn't change the world?

Because it's the people in the background who make all the difference. It's the people in the background who are the world, who give it meaning and shape it in the subtle often overlooked ways. I could be getting a little over dramatic as I near middle-age I suppose, but I always figure if not for people like us then there would be no need for people like Harry and Voldemort, who made the big gestures.

And why shouldn't those in their set roles have a chance to explain how they eventually just…slipped out of their roles anyway?

So that's what we're going to do. We dug out the old journals we were forced to keep then got together and began wracking our brain to recall things that, if we had an ounce of definable common sense, we wouldn't go screwing around with.

But it's like seeing two brooms collide in mid-air. It's terrible and you shouldn't be entranced by it but you just can't seem to help yourself, even when the wreck and the pain are your own. I'd like to say that being more well adjusted makes me wonder about who I was back then but I'm very rarely really that optimistic.

Lets just leave it at: As long as I am aware and understand why I was who I was then, I can't be that person again. That sounds good doesn't it? I think it does, so I'm going to go ahead and stick with that.

It's not really a happy story, when you think about it. Sure, it ended on an up note and everything but…it's not really happy. But why should it be? It wasn't all rainbows, butterflies, and big eyes kittens for everyone when the war was over.

Some of us were scarred, jaded, changed…but of course you never hear about any of that stuff because it's too depressing. You all want to believe we saved the day from the big bad evil and skipped off hand in hand into the setting sun.

That's not it.

…I think that's all I have to say right now. Feel free to put this tale down and continue on your way, or else turn the page and begin.