Defined from her first episode as the baby of the group, Dawn only ever seems secure when she has a parental figure to look out for her. Which would be fine, except Dawn's parental figures keep dying and running off to Europe with an unnerving regularity. Even her friendships with girls her own age rarely seem to last more than an episode: Sharon, Melissa, Janice, Lisa... Not to mention her brief, doomed relationship with Justin the teen-vamp.

Throughout the show Dawn's darker side has always manifested as a response to feeling abandoned or excluded. She pursues a friendship with Spike, despite the possible danger because of her need for acceptance. She steals dangerous items from the Magic Box as a plea for attention and attempts a potentially catastrophic spell in order to resurrect her mom.

Exacerbating this we have the fact that she's a teenager, an age-group predisposed to do incredibly damaging things without a proper regard for the consequences, not to mention the fact that she's built from a near-immortal supernatural entity whose history has been riddled with bloodshed and destruction.

Where to start

Dawn was protected from the darker elements of the Buffyverse for most of her life. She wasn't allowed to get involved in Scooby business, read up on demons and certainly not to see any in the flesh. Remember that until 'The Real Me' she'd never seen a vamp dusted and it's likely that her only interactions with the undead were with "safe" vampires like Angel and Spike.

Events in Sunnydale meant that Dawn was suddenly exposed to the dark forces surrounding her with little understanding and zero coping mechanisms. Keeping this background in mind, it's easy to see a naive Dawn taken advantage of by dark forces, but perhaps the more interesting possibility is that of a Dawn newly exposed to and enamoured of the dark. Dawn's been shown canonically to have the intelligence and ability to work complex dark magic, the opportunity to collect spell components without being discovered and an almost total ignorance as to the possible consequences dark magic can have. Throw in her predisposition to take dangerous risks when threatened with exclusion or abandonment of any kind and you have the perfect starting point for all manner of darkfic.

Episodes with inspiration

Dawn in 'No Place Like Home' before we found out she was the key. The idea of some inhuman creature being placed into your life and your memories altered so you can't even defend yourself against it is truly frightening. We know now that Dawn wasn't aware of the situation, but the scene remains chilling. "Want tea, Mom?"

Dawn in 'Blood Ties' after cutting her arm. It's a combination of the stare, the knife held at that unnatural angle and the toneless voice asking "Is this blood?"

Dawn in Villains when you realise she's been sitting there on her own all day with the dead body of her latest parent-figure.

Warnings

Dawn is a difficult character to pitch without making her seem much smarter or dumber than she appears on the show. The trick to this is differentiating between IQ and EQ. Dawn was established early on as being big with the book smarts. She reads for pleasure, plays chess and is academically gifted. Emotionally, however, she has yet to mature. She just doesn't have the life-experience that the other characters do and it shows in the way that she misjudges people's moods and has her feelings hurt so easily.

By all means write Dawn as being drawn to, or becoming a victim of the dark through her emotional naivete, but don't write her as intellectually immature. She's not.

For more info on writing darkfic, head on over to Campfire Tales.