written for sunshinedaisieswindmills' "not your house" challenge and mugglemaybe's literary quotes challenge
house: slytherin
quote: "beauty is terror" - the secret history, donna tart
Your name is Pansy.
It is soft and simple, an exhale of air uncurling from your father's tongue when he comes home to cradle you for the very first time. His hands wrap around your body carefully; they are warm and they are gentle. They are home. You'd never know that they were covered in blood mere minutes ago.
"Pansy," he sighs, bending forward to press a whiskery kiss against your stubby nose.
Rain hammers on the windowpanes outside. It washes away the whispers of your father's sins and the remnants of a man named Benjy Fenwick, leaving nothing but scattered suggestions far and wide until all that is left is pure.
Pure, pure, pure.
It is all you will ever know.
It is all pansies need to grow.
You are five years old.
Mother pulls you into one of your prettiest robes, a deep purple to match the pansy blooming in your hair, frills cascading towards the ground, skimming the hardwood floor of your manor. Her hand grips your chin firmly, her eyes critical, and then a smile pushes the apples of her cheeks towards the sky with a murmur of approval.
"My Pansy," she murmurs warmly. "My princess. You are so beautiful."
You reveal a toothy smile in response, pink sweeping through your face in pleasure. It is nothing new to you, of course: your parents insist upon telling you about your fair face and endless grace until it has become something of a mantra and all of their friends say the same, ruffling your carefully braided hair, their fingers heavy with family rings and enough gold to make a goblin faint. You are pretty and pure and perfect because you are Pansy Parkinson and the world is your oyster.
Dutifully, you take your mother's hand and follow her down countless stairs and corridors, clamping your mouth down on any complaints because today is a Very Special day and you are entertaining Very Special guests so you must be on your Best Behaviour and not embarrass your parents. You must be the pinnacle of what it means to be a Parkinson, even if that means pretending that you wouldn't rather have Nillie apparate you to the drawing room instead of walking all the way there.
Mother sweeps into the room, a vision of emerald silk and rouge lips, her dark hair tumbling down to whisper against her bare back, smile practiced and perfect. She takes you straight to your father who removes the cigar from his mouth, grasps your free hand with his own and introduces you to the man lounging in the armchair opposite him.
"Ah. Pansy," says the man, polished and posh and accented in strange places that make you want to crinkle your nose. "A beautiful name for a beautiful girl."
"Thank you," you say and Father nods in approval.
"I have to confess, I have a beautiful daughter of my own," says the strange man.
He beckons over to someone on the other side of the room and, within seconds, there's the pitter-patter of feet and a new addition to the group. She looks about your age but unlike Millie Bulstrode, this one is positively angelic and pretty, blonde hair pulled back in a complicated braid to bare her face to the world. She doesn't speak, only stares at you with inquisitive blue eyes, as docile as you've been trained to be.
"This is my little girl, Daphne," he continues, placing a hand on her shoulder. "She is about your age, I think. When you're older, you'll even go to Hogwarts at the same time. Daphne, say hi," he encourages.
When the girl parts her lips, her words are breathed in a slight lisp. "Good morning, Pansy." She even dips into a small curtsey, earning an amused titter from the adults.
"Hello."
You reply just as you are expected to but your mind is whirring inside. You think you might have made a new friend.
Your house is Slytherin.
The ratty old Sorting Hat does not even have to ponder it, can sense it inside you from the very first touch, and the shout it flings into the Great Hall fills you with cool pride, even as the other houses transform from eager to distrustful within a heartbeat. You don't even notice it, sliding into the seat next to Daphne with a happy beam, the two of you dissolving into excited chatters. You are as green as the forests that roll out for miles around you, as silver as the stars scattered like sparkles on the ceiling above. You are Slytherin because you are worthy and you are pure.
But you are not a princess here with your crown of purple pansies and legions of adoring purebloods. You do not rule Elysium, have not transcended the common masses. People do not whisper of your beauty or your brains, do not send you demure smiles and fall at your feet.
They say your voice is high and pinched, your nose an inconvenience at best and a snout at worst. Your mouth sits mean and malicious, your skin coloured as pale as milk, almost translucent with a network of veins and arteries and capillaries that sits too close to the surface. Your taunts aren't funny, your efforts unnoticed. You cling to Draco Malfoy like a second skin, fade into the shadows cast by the luminance of your best friend, aren't even worth a second thought where Potter and his awful friends are concerned. For all your power, you are forced to slog it with the rest of the commoners.
But you are a Parkinson and you cannot be beaten down. You fight against the condemnation and you fight dirty because you might be a prim and proper pureblood but you are also Pansy and pansies know how to bloom in the partial shade you have been pushed into. Your nails scratch down the walls of the box you are confined to, your howls grow louder, your snarls more vicious. You know what you want and you will be damned if you don't get it, even if you have to drag others down to achieve your goals.
There's a shiny new badge pinned to the soft black cotton of your robes. Silver, shaped in an I, its edges sharp and polished to a shine. Its sister is an emerald shield embellished with a cursive P coloured like a sickle and both of them scream with power, promising swift punishment and retribution to anyone who once threatened to squash down the brilliance that is Pansy Parkinson. You are drunk off it, sauntering through the hallways of Hogwarts, ready to flash a sardonic smile at the scurrying masses. You see their resentment and know it is fear. See their retreat and know you have won.
You are a princess and this castle is your domain. You have wrestled it back off the likes of Potter and his Mudblood Granger – you reign supreme, head held high, shoulders thrown back with the sort of confidence you can only have when you are secure in your throne at the top, your crown light on your brow. Though the students aren't praising you, aren't pressing forward with eager hands and eager hearts at your service, you know that there is a fine line between fear and fealty, that one day you will earn both.
Because though the Ministry may bury its head in the sand, you know that the Dark Lord has risen again, scrabbled his way out of his grave to elevate you all, returning the mudbloods to the ground from whence they came. Because you are pure, pure, pure and that is all that can flourish, all that must be preserved, all that can be – one day, it is all that will be and you will be resting on a throne of pansies with your mother and father by your side, knowing that everything is as it should be, knowing that the world you grew up in – pure, pure, pure – will no longer be tainted.
He is close enough for you to count every blonde eyelash that frames his eyes, like sunlight has dripped from the sky, drop by drop, and pressed into him in two fans of gold that sweep downwards, resting gently on the porcelain curves of his cheeks. He swallows nervously, his hands fluttering to your side to wrap around your waist. You lean forward, emboldened by his advances and your mouth seeks his eagerly, as if they've been starved these past sixteen years you've lived.
You join for the first time and it is as if the sunlight that has graced him is trickling into you, scorching your throat, filling you with happiness and radiance and everything that is good and pure in this world. You push onto your tiptoes, ready to devour him like you've wanted to for so long, fingers tangled up in the feather soft strands of his hair. The imprint of you is burned into him.
When you part, you are breathless. "That was nice," you whisper.
Draco blinks, the movement dazed and slow, and it makes you smile from ear to ear because all those taunts you've heard about your lack of beauty must be wrong if you've reduced him to a speechless imitation of a Malfoy.
"Yes…" he murmurs, still leaning in towards you. What little light has filtered into this corner of the dungeons pales in comparison to the brilliance of him but it illuminates the tenderness in his expression perfectly. "Yes, it was."
He finds your lips then and you lose yourself in him again, burning away to cinders from the intensity of his want, his need – but if he is the sun, then you are Icarus, and you are ready to let your wings smoulder as long as you can, just to get a taste of what he has to offer.
Later, you crawl into Daphne's bed and describe each mind-blowing second, your heart still soaring towards the sky. You do not notice her wistful expression, the lies that hover on her tongue – or perhaps, you do and you simply do not care. Ambrosia tastes sweet on your lips, after all, and it is all you know.
You are a princess, you are a deity and you have found the god who shares your throne.
He kneels in front of you, broken and splayed; a boy, not a god, and you find you don't care. You are not concerned with power and princes, not when the one who owns your heart has broken his own. You have been careful when holding it, showered it in love, but it is not you who has reduced it to dust, not you who is to blame. You can do nothing but sit down, grasp his face in your palms and tell him it is okay.
"Draco," you say but he refuses to listen. He shakes uncontrollably, an angel stripped of his wings, two gashes dripping with blood and ichor onto the cold, stone floor of the Slytherin dormitories. "Draco, listen to me. Listen to me."
"I can't do it," he moans. "I can't do it and he's going to kill me, Pans. He's going to kill me."
You press forward. "It's going to be okay, love. I promise it's going to be okay. You can do it. I don't know what the hell it is you've been told to do but I believe that you can do it. I believe in you. We all believe in you."
You once thought he was sunlight in man's form. Bleeding fire and passion, threatening to engulf you in a moment's notice; too dangerous to stray too close to, too beautiful to ignore, forever stuck in his orbit. But this boy is no longer invincible. He does not stand tall and spit fire. He's waxing like the moon, ready to fade into nothing, and you're terrified he won't return.
"I can't – "
"Yes. You. Can."
You are not sure what to think anymore, not sure what to do. The Dark Lord seemed like a saviour once, someone to pull the purebloods back up from their fallen ranks, fashioning you thrones of gold and sceptres of diamond, scorching the remains of the earth for you. An exhilarating show of power, heady and consuming. Like many, you were enraptured. His vision was glorious; his vision was glamorous.
But this? This is not glamorous.
Watching the boy you love fall to pieces is not glamorous. Clinging to Daphne as she murmurs goodbye because she's sneaking back to Greece in the middle of the night is not glamorous. Seeing your father come home, his shoes leaving a trail of blood on the linoleum floor as he shrugs off his mask is not glamorous. Choking on fear is not glamorous.
None of this is fucking glamorous.
But you are Pansy Parkinson and you once made a promise to stay on top of the world. You refuse to disintegrate with the masses, refuse to rebel and fade away in a sweep of green light. Your heart may quicken in terror, your stomach may tighten in horror. Your lungs can fill with desperation but they will breathe out hatred – because it is better to spite and survive than to love and lose, and there is no mudblood in this universe you care for deeply enough to sacrifice yourself.
Your name is Parkinson.
It resonates through halls you've known for six years already, a whisper that is tossed from person to person, student to student, until it becomes a roar. Your name is Parkinson and you are in the upper echelons of this school. Few like to meet your eyes, even fewer still will call your name. You are royalty, dripping silver and green, fingers laden with twisting metal and family rings and twirling a short stick that hums with power so people know to stay out of your way.
For once, your crown is not fashioned from pansies; it's fashioned from bone.
The bones of all the mudbloods who made the mistake of returning to Hogwarts, frightened eleven year olds who screamed for their mothers as they were dragged off the train; the bones of the poor souls in the Ministry who are sucked dry for daring to steal magic that doesn't belong to them; the bones of Muggles slaughtered in a nation-wide panic that they don't understand. Blood and bones, it is all blood and bones.
You wear your crown alone.
Draco is trapped under the cold eyes of the Dark Lord, so far away that you are sure he does not remember you anymore. Daphne is safe in Greece, most likely sipping on a cool drink on the beach, charming the local ladies with her grace. Zabini is nowhere to be found, probably hurrying along his latest stepfather's death so he and his mother can hasten out of the country.
You are alone with no one but Vince and Greg to keep you company, two boys who love their power so much that they're intent on carving their own crowns. You leave them to their antics, too disgusted with the gleam in Vince's eyes every time he tortures a third year to within an inch of her life, too terrified to step in and make them stop.
You are a Parkinson, after all. Your father's mask brands him as one of Lord Voldemort's own; his surname brands you as one too. You cannot cut the many ties that tether you to his control. You are sure your neck will snap if you try.
His voice is a hiss in your head.
It enters slowly, trickling in through the synapses and neurons like water, barely noticeable… until there is a sudden tidal wave of power and darkness slamming open the recesses of your mind to speak. It feels like he is speaking to you and you alone, words laced with deliberation, as if he's merely musing about his plans for dinner instead of threatening to kill you all. Despite his best efforts, there is cruelty there, lending the diplomatic tone a charge that chills your bones, has you blinking furiously at the shell-shocked students and blurting out:
"But – he's there! Potter's there!" When no one moves, you shriek desperately, "Someone grab him!"
No one does.
Instead, they turn on you: spiteful little Pansy Parkinson with her nasal screech and her vicious scowls and a father who is waiting outside the wards of the castle, ready to attack hundreds of children in the name of his lord. They turn on you, their wands pointed directly at your heart, and the sight fills you with terror, with rage –
Because surely, they can see it too? Surely, they realise that one boy, one stupid boy, is not worth the blood of so many innocent people who have not asked to be here tonight? Surely, they understand?
They do not understand.
They do not care.
Not one person regards you warmly as you are escorted out of the Great Hall like a prisoner, Filch muttering mad things in your ear, your mind a blank fog, unable to comprehend just how the entire school has signed their names on the dotted line, inviting the Dark Lord in to slaughter them all. Because there is no doubt in your mind that he will win: you have seen his power, felt it exploding in your head, know that nothing on earth can rival him, not even the Boy Who Lived. He is completely unrestrained in his abilities, violently and beautifully and frighteningly so, more than a man with magic. A man who is magic.
You are escorted out of the castle, knowing that you have left a graveyard, not knowing that the one time you tried to help those beneath you will be marked as treachery for forever.
When the war is over, Daphne meets you in Greece.
You step out of the International Travel Centre with the clothes on your back and a small trunk on your heels, the sun's joyous kisses bouncing off you like they've never been delivered in the first place. Goosebumps erupt across your bare skin, your veins starker than ever, and you shiver, feeling as if you'll never know warmth ever again.
Your name is Pansy Parkinson.
Your throne disintegrated the second Tom Riddle collapsed onto the floor of the Great Hall, the vivid petals of your tiara darkening, curling in on themselves, crumbling to dust. There are boulders attached to all nine letters of your surname, dragging you down from your escape and into the depths of hell. Where once it gave you protection, insulated you from the true effects of the horrors from these past few years, it is now a condemnation, shackling you to the pureblood regime for the rest of your days. You do not gaze down at the commoners as you once wished to; you are beneath them, looking up from the dirt in despair.
Father serves a lifetime sentence in Azkaban. Only a few doors down from him is Draco, curled up in his cell for the mark marring his left forearm, sobbing himself to sleep every night. Mother drifts through the manor, muttering murderously under her breath, a bottle of fine wine never too far from her hands. She doesn't even notice you anymore – you doubt she noticed you leave.
But there is still someone who notices you, someone who doesn't recoil when the name hovering on the frayed edges of their mind suddenly springs forward at the sight of you, your surname blaring like a siren. Someone who runs forward like a whirlwind, folding you into their arms with a shout.
"Pansy!" comes Daphne's elated exclamation.
It is the first sign of happiness you have seen in months. It ghosts over you like a warm sigh, breathing life into you in a way the Greek sunshine cannot. You push forward blindly with a pathetic cry, thin arms linking around Daphne's waist, your head in the crook of her neck.
You don't even realise you're crying.
Life with the Greengrasses is… different.
Whenever you look back at England, it is obscured by darkness in your memories, forever stormy skies and bleak despair and the tell-tale chill of Dementors drifting by. You remember Father's hands transforming from calloused and comforting to bloodier than a Viking in battle. You remember Mother's tight-lipped smile, her constant reassurances that this is the path to greatness, and the way Draco kneeled on the floor of his dormitory, begging you to take the pain away. You remember little halfblood girls, no older than twelve, chained in the dungeons, crying out in fear when Vince lumbered out of the shadows with his wand. The plea in their tears as they twisted around at the sounds of your footsteps –
And how you turned your head and walked away.
(Because to stop Vince was to bring on a reckoning, to drag your loyalty into question and your heart out of your chest. To stop Vince was to die and a halfblood preteen was never worth that.)
But Greece is not about twisted terrorists and teachers torturing their students; it is not about propaganda emblazoned across The Daily Prophet, the murders of innocents and a manhunt for a boy who was barely seventeen years old.
It is about sunshine and strawberries and the satisfaction of watching your skin peel away in strips of angry red, as if you are shedding the Parkinson and simply becoming Pansy.
It is about nibbling on feta cheese and black olives, pressing your toes in the scorching sand, helping Astoria climb to the tops of the laurel trees that surround the villa and pretending like you're not one of the most hated people in England. It's giggling when Daphne puffs out three quick breaths that mist over your face when she compliments you, slowly feeling your clothes get tighter, sipping wine in the drawing room as her mother plays the piano and her father leans against it, eyes closed, tilted towards her with a tenderness that is hard not to envy.
It's happiness. Unrestrained happiness where you're not worrying about scheming your way up to the top, toppling off the riffraff once and for all. A happiness that you know you will fight for unconditionally if it's ever threatened, your fingers becoming claws, probing out every weakness to take advantage of because you may have shed your surname but you are still a Slytherin and you are more concerned with protecting what is yours than being honourable.
And this life?
Well, it's yours.
The sun that creeps over the mountains is yours. The water sparkling around your ankles is yours. The cocoon of security is yours.
And Daphne is all yours too.
Your love for her is nothing like your love for Draco. Back then, you thought that you would be ravaged by him, consumed by the fierce flames of life that raged inside of the cavity of his chest, licking away at you bit by bit until you were gone – and the thought of giving yourself completely to him was wonderful, another flower for your crown, another dream scratched off the list. But when you kiss Daphne for the very first time, you think that perhaps filling your lungs with smoke and fire isn't as good as you once thought.
Daphne tastes like the strawberries you watched her teeth dig into minutes before. Her skin smells faintly of lemons from her shower this morning and it is soft to the touch when she presses forward, making you sink into the bed like it's a cloud. She's a comfortable weight on your body and when you raise your hips, you find that she is just as appealing when she's plastered onto you like wallpaper, wrapping around every sharp edge to smooth them away.
When she pulls back, you open your eyes. "That was the best kiss I've ever had," you confess.
She laughs, the sound rumbling against your chest before it escapes like the notes of a nightingale gracing the air, lovelier than her mother's compositions.
"I sure hope so," she says and you can't help but return her smile albeit shy and unsure.
Before you know it, you're whispering, "I think I'm in love with you," and then freezing in fear because even though you know that she's yours and that you're hers and that it has always been this way, you can't help but thinking that Daphne is the most beautiful thing to walk on this earth –
And that beauty is terror.
Spilling over in the wildest ways imaginable, incomprehensible to your mind, a force to be reckoned with; true beauty is everything you never had, everything you bore witness to during the depressing days of Hogwarts when the Dark Lord's reign had you trembling in terror and awe and breathless disbelief at how something so dark and malignant could still be oddly beautiful in its ruthless efficiency and seductive flourishes. Beauty is destruction.
But then Daphne smiles again and you notice that there's a chip on her incisor and she's bending down to murmur against your lips:
"I think I've been in love with you since I was five years old."
Dementors may not rule Azkaban anymore but their presence is still felt. Their chill pervades the air and settles in your bones with an ache, enticing a shiver down your spine, so you grip Daphne's hand even tighter, will the spark of heat in her fingertips to invade your body once again. The air is stolen out of you in a cloud of smoke. The sight of it makes you fear that it will all escape you, leave you to die on this wretched island like your father surely will, fading away into the dirty pages of history.
But soon enough, the door on the far end of the room is opening and two guards are leading someone into the room – and then you're running forward, throwing your arms around Draco with all the ferocity of a sister, mumbling his name through a mouthful of tears.
He is a stranger to you. Shoulders thin beneath the rags of his uniform, hair matted with dirt, each notch of his spine stark against the gentle ministrations of your fingers as he collapses into you, half-blind with sobs. He clutches onto you like he's drowning and you're his only lifeline, like he has been submerged in the depths of the Atlantic for so long that he's forgotten how to swim.
"It's okay, Draco," you whisper, smoothing down his hair, the grease ignored, only concerned with showing this beautiful, broken boy the love he's been starved of for the past two years. "You're free now. You're free."
The Ministry has finally caved, released the first of its prisoners to the public after trapping him away from the sun and sky for burning a mark into his forearm to save his family, for being a terrified little boy with no one way out. In a few years, Narcissa will follow, her love for her son her saving grace – but the rest of them will fade away with their Dark Marks in these dank cells, the walls trembling with their screams.
Somewhere beyond that door lies your father. You wonder whether he curls up on the floor, wracked with agony or whether he's as composed as you've always known him to be, hands folded in his lap in just the right way to display the garish insignia of the Parkinson family ring, calm and faintly amused. You know that you can never bring yourself to find out.
"Come," whispers a new voice and then there is Daphne tugging Draco upright to hook his arm over her shoulders. "Let's go home."
You don't return to England after that. Mother refused to acknowledge you when you stopped by the manor, teeth gritted with scorn because you weren't struck down fighting for the Dark Lord alongside your father, and there is nothing else to tether you there. The clouds are still grey, the birds as quiet as death, everything a world away from the rugged landscape of Greece. It is no great sadness to leave it all behind.
The three of you move into your own house near Megara, a quiet place where you spend your time wandering vineyards, lounging on Kinetta Beach and dabbling in half a hundred hobbies to while away the hours in the sun.
Soon enough, your hands are permanently splattered in paint, skin often a tender red that positively sings when Daphne heals them with gentle kisses, her hand light on your waist. There is green smeared across your cheeks when you paint the trees scattered across your garden, a silver band on your left finger that promises Daphne's eternal love and, for once, neither makes you think of the house that still calls your name, the one that owns you and brands you.
Eventually, the same can be said for Draco. You watch him slowly knit himself back together, the nightmares ebbing away until you can honestly say that he spends more nights in a soft slumber instead of violent shakes by a fire that can never warm him. You're there when he starts to cautiously step foot outside, buoyed by the peals of laughter from you and Daphne, sunken eyes wondrous at the feel of grass underneath his heel. You hear his voice recover, sense the hesitant smile approach before it arrives in full force, feel the sharp delicacy of his bones disappear as he eats more food and it starts to show. The gaunt hollows of his cheeks recall some of the innocence they once had and they press against yours when he whispers his gratitude for saving him.
For all the evil whispers that circulate about you back in England, you are still a hero.
Once, you melted in his hold, blinded by the glare of his beauty and rage; now, the two of you embrace each other like family. There is nothing tantalisingly destructive about it, nothing beyond the camaraderie of being the only two people in Greece burdened by the weight of your fathers' sins and transgressions, of your own wilful ignorance.
You are not in love – because if you were, all you would do is drag each other down with your nightmares. The two of you need someone soft and angelic, their lilt a calm melody to soothe you in your distress, their fingers threading through the strands of your hair to curl at the nape of your neck, pressing their love into you. Telling you you're beautiful and then puffing three breaths on your face a heartbeat later, giggles ghosting into your lungs when they spot your shy smile.
One day, you and Draco are both balancing mountains of hummus on pitta bread in the kitchen when you realise that the two of you have fallen in love with the Greengrass sisters.
Because these girls, these perfectly imperfect girls are both snakes with no venom in their bites, only a fierce love in their hearts for those they deem worthy and you are that. You are worthy of all this love Daphne has mustered up from the depths of her soul. But there is no throne for you, no wreath of pansies to adorn your dark hair, and you don't want one either. You do not need to sit on a pedestal to feel on top of the world. You do not need to sneer down at muggleborns and feel power rush through your blood like the heady song of a siren.
You do not need to hate, hate, hate to stay pure, pure, pure.
Pansy.
Your name is Pansy.
It is soft and simple, an exhale of air uncurling from Daphne's tongue when she comes home to caress your body for the millionth time. And your name is Parkinson too. A swift, sharp staccato of a surname that somehow sounds gentle when her mouth tastes it, when her mouth tastes you.
Sunlight dances on the windowpanes outside. Chin digging into the olive curve of her shoulder, you watch it creep in, tiptoeing closer as the morning blooms to life around you – but there is no vibrant burst of activity in your bedroom, nothing that truly stirs. Daphne curls up in her slumber, the blonde waves of her hair spilling across her pillow to tickle at your face, thread in amongst the choppy dark strands of your own until the two of you blend into one.
If you listen hard enough, you can hear the steady beats of her heart. You think it is like a drumbeat, the constant rhythm to the sound of your name on her lips, to the swell of love and adoration in her voice. It is one of the few things in your life that is truly pure and you like it that way.
Pure, pure, pure.
It is all you want to know.
It is all pansies need to grow.
Disclaimer: Once again, "beauty is terror" is directly lifted from The Secret History by Donna Tart. Furthermore, Pansy's outburst in the Great Hall ("But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!") is from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. If I was JKR, my stories would be canon and there'd be a lot more Hinny so alas I am not.
Challenges: The house I least identify with is Slytherin and Pansy Parkinson is probably one of the most severely disliked characters from that house attending Hogwarts at the same time as Harry. I wanted to explore her psyche with this challenge, really get beyond the shallow look we get of her. Here is the toxic combination of what being told you are meant to rule the world and pureblood bigotry does to you - and how that can all crumble when you see the stark reality of it. In the early years, it is pride and ambition that drives her determination; in the later years, it is her fear that does so. She turns a blind eye because it's the "smart" thing to do.
I didn't actually mean to write the quote into this entry but it worked its way in. There are many levels to the beauty is terror concept here. Her ambitions and aspirations were "beautiful". The picture weaved by the Death Eaters and Voldemort was "beautiful". Draco is beautiful and Daphne is too. But in reality, the pureblood agenda that makes her goals a truth are terrifying and her romantic love with Draco is consuming. And in reality, Daphne has the power to hurt her if she wants to.
Additional Notes: Daphne is Greek. According to greeka dot com, the belief of the Evil Eye (matiasma) is v prominent in Greek society and, along with the classic charm/talisman, one of the methods to prevent it is "spitting" on someone after a compliment. It's not actually spitting, it's more of a fhou, fhou, fhou: three short puffs of air on the person complimented. It's actually pretty common - I sometimes do it too.