Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness...

Chapter One; Slytherin

Violet reflects despondently on her past years at Hogwarts. Having vowed to stand up for herself, she comes face to face with her first test. After failing miserably, she has her first of many encounters with the one and only Tom Riddle.

A/N: Anything recognisable belongs to JKR. Characters (with the exception of Violet) as well as ideas and settings belong to her. I do not own Tom Riddle or any other recognisable themes or characters.

My first five years at Hogwarts went by almost completely free of anything eventful. First year, I nervously boarded the Hogwarts Express, sat in a crowded compartment with some other first years that I didn't particularly care for, and then I was sorted into Slytherin. This annoyed me greatly. The sorting hat had lingered on my head for the longest time by far. Nobody else could tell, but in my head, the sorting hat and I were having a rather heated argument. I knew about the Slytherin stereotype and I wanted no part of it. I would have liked to be in Gryffindor, or Ravenclaw, heck I would have settled for Hufflepuff, but I guess the sorting hat had other plans for me. Whilst my mind was in mid sentence, arguing my point for why I should not be placed in Slytherin, the sorting hat cut me off.

It yelled in my ear, "SLYTHERIN!"

*"Damn"* I thought as I jumped off the stool and walked slowly over to the cheering Slytherin table.

I was still rather bitter at the beginning of my sixth year. Sitting on the train, my mind lingered on my memories of the previous years. Every year was the same. Being angry about being placed in Slytherin, I did not really get friendly with anyone, especially other Slytherins. I kept quiet mostly and stayed to myself. Vaguely I wondered what my life would have been like had I been in another house. I was not a naturally quiet person, I was outgoing and friendly. Of course, very few people at Hogwarts knew me this way. I wondered if I would have been popular or had many friends. I would never know. I was in Slytherin.

I had been raised, for the first part of my life, with muggles and I could not stand the pureblood mania that seemed to be normal for the rest of my fellow Slytherins. Now I lived with my aunt and her two children. John was a year younger than me and Mary was two years older. I got along quite well with them, but I was not like them and this seemed to frustrate my aunt. I was always last in family activities; this didn't bother me very much. Not many things bothered me. I'm not sure why, I guess it was just in my nature. No one else in my family went to Hogwarts. I suppose they just weren't interested. Neither was I but my aunt believed it was necessary. I always thought that she just wanted to get rid of me.

My family wasn't very open about it's pureblood status. Granted, they attended all of the pure-blood functions and balls; which I was always forced to attend, but for the most part, they were ok with just knowing themselves. You see, my mother and my aunt were both Schlechts. From the 1000s to around the late 1800s, the Schlechts were a very dark wizarding family. They were very well known in all of Europe and very feared as well. Luckily, I had my father's last name. He had been a muggle. This made me a half-blood. Nothing too incriminating went on in his family. Not to say that there was nothing; there had been a period when a part of the family were pirates and then later on outlaws in the old West. There were rumours about a relation to Robin Hood but nothing was ever proven. I loved my dad. We had so much in common and he loved me. Not that I didn't love my mother, but we didn't have as much in common as my father and I did.

My mind had begun to wander again.

I was overlooked a lot at school. It isn't really unlikely that many people thought I was mute. I spoke rarely. This summer though, I had consciously decided to stand up for myself. I had been pushed around a lot over the past few years and was not about to put up with it any more. As I thought about this, I realised how difficult it would be for me to actually do this. After so many years, I had no real experience with fighting back.

It didn't take long for my first test to come up.

"Davis!" My head snapped from the window to the door of the compartment. "We are going to sit here now…so you can go." I knew this girl all too well. Isabella Bulstrode was one of the more intimidating Slytherin girls. She had never given up an opportunity to bully or humiliate me. It made her look good in front of everyone.

I never got pushed around as much as the Gryffindors did, but probably out of all the Slytherins, I was everyone's least favourite. Maybe it was because I was so distant and cold to the other Slytherins or maybe it was the fact that the only two friends I had were from other houses that made them dislike me. That was most likely the problem. They didn't understand me. That, and the common knowledge of my being a half-blood.

My best friend was Laura Waters. She was a Ravenclaw and a "mudblood". My other best friend was Emily Weasley. She was in Gryffindor and a pureblood "bloodtraiter". Many of their friends didn't like me. It was my Slytherin stigma; they couldn't trust me. I seemed to be "the enemy" wherever I went.

"Davis, if you're not going to get out then I'll just have to make you!" Isabella always seemed to be screeching no matter who she was talking to. She could have used magic to throw me out but she didn't even need to. She grabbed the front of my robes and threw me into the corridor of the train.

I fell hard. Ignoring the laughter from behind the now closed compartment door, I tried to gather my thoughts. Once again I was interrupted. I realised that there was a pair of shoes standing next to me. Not only was there a pair of shoes, there was a person attached to them. Slowly I looked up…way up, to see Tom Riddle staring down at me.

*"Oh great."*

I had never spoken a single word to Tom Riddle. If I had, Isabella would have murdered me; but I knew quite a bit about him. Many of my fellow Slytherins seemed to almost worship him. They feared him. And no wonder; he was very intimidating, although I had a feeling that there were other reasons. It was too strange how they obeyed his every word without question. His piercing blue eyes gazed down at me, a quizzical expression on his face.

*"Excellent"* I thought sarcastically as I noticed the prefect badge on his robes.

"Davis." I just stared up at him. "What are you doing on the floor?"

"Oh, I just thought I would spend some time down here…change of pace, you know." I guess I was trying to make up to myself for not standing up to Bulstrode, but I knew better than to get snarky with Tom Riddle. To my surprise he said nothing. He simply arched his eyebrows.

Turning his head, he looked into the compartment I was obviously thrown out of. He looked back down at me, one eyebrow cocked. "Get kicked out again, eh Davis?" To tell you the truth, I had been quite amazed that he had known my name in the first place, or at least my last name, let alone that he was aware of my existence. But he knew that this happened to me often. I was passed surprised.

"Of course," I answered, "It's more comfortable out here anyway." He sort of smirked.

"Well as comfortable as you find it out here, I'm afraid you're going to have to find a compartment." He paused. "We can't have people stepping on you." He offered me his hand; another shock. I took it and stood up.

"Thanks," I said on my feet. He nodded, then continued walking down the train. I watched him for a moment before going myself.

I walked in search of Laura and Emily. It took a few minutes but I was glad to have finally found them.

"Violet!" Laura yelled as I entered the compartment. Nearly falling over from her hug, I tried to steady myself.

"Well hello." I said somewhat dazed.

"Hi Violet!" Emily was a little calmer and less emotional than Laura.

"Hey! How were your summers?" I asked seating myself opposite Emily's cat 'Merlin's Beard'. His name suited him. He was the ugliest cat I had ever seen. I could imagine him, attached to Merlin's face.

Laura shrugged. "Can't complain, I went to Australia with my family for a few weeks, it was a wonderful time."

"Lucky!" Emily wasn't nearly as wealthy as Laura. Laura's mother was doctor and her father was a surgeon. Emily's mother was a housewife and her father owned a small shop in Diagon Ally. "I stayed home," Emily said dully "How about you?"

"I didn't really do anything to speak of," It was very true. I had slept most of the summer away.

We began to talk about any random thing we could think of. While in the middle of discussing the attractive Hufflepuff keeper, I was interrupted for the third time that day. To my relief, it was not another Slytherin, just the elderly witch with the sweet trolley. We all bought a few sweets then went back to talking.

The rest of the train ride went rather quickly. It seemed to be no time at all before we were all headed up to the castle in the thestral-drawn carriages. I was not looking forward to the feast. I hated having to sit surrounded by chatting Slytherins. I tried to seat myself away from everyone else, but of course I ended up being right between Olga Mcnair and some third year. I think her name was Lady…or Lulu…something stupid like that. As I sat poking at my food, my eyes wandered down the table. I stopped when I came to Tom Riddle. He was surrounded by his usual group of followers; Lestrange, Malfoy, Avery, Dolohov, Nott, Mulciber and Rosier. A little farther down was Bulstrode. I noticed that she kept glancing at Riddle hopefully.

*"Pfft, keep dreaming sister."* Tom Riddle never bothered with any girl, let alone Isabella Bulstrode.

My dormitory was shared with two other girls; Eileen Flint and Cedrella Black. I would have been able to get along with these girls, maybe even be friends with them, was it not for their fear of Isabella. She hated me with a passion and along with me, anyone associated with me. I had managed to stay quiet for the entire evening. I was quite glad to flop down onto my bed, let my head hit the pillow and sleep.

A/N: Schlecht means bad in German and the title of this story is from part of a Martin Luther King quote. The full quote is "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."