In this universe, Dobby does not arrive as quickly and instead, Bellatrix, Narcissa and Lucius leave Hermione for Draco to finish off. They expected screaming, bloodshed, heartless and merciless curses, what they didn't expect, was this...

     A woman is never so beautiful as when she is crying, eyes and nose red, face twisted, eyebrows outlined, lips more plump and quivering. As demented and twisted as it sounds, it's true. And so, here was Hermione Granger, lying on the floor of Malfoy Manner, silent sobs falling from her pain drunken eyes as Draco Malfoy stood completely still. Bellatrix had told him to finish her off, to 'rid the world of the filthy Mudblood,' as she had said. The problem was, Lucius and Narcissa were still in the room, and Draco couldn't bring himself to move. He couldn't even get his wand to his fingers. The worst part was that he could feel his mother staring him down, testing him, judging him. 

       "Well go on then Draco." His fathers cold voice rang through the marble room, bouncing off the walls and stabbing Draco. He flinched, his messy hair falling across his forehead as he tried to suppress the bile in his throat. What he had just witnessed was vile, dirty, cruel. All things which he knew Bellatrix was the queen of, but, this was a whole other level of evil. 

      "Come darling, Draco needs a moment to collect himself so that he may do what he needs to." Narcissa's voice was calm, some may even mistake it for caring, but Draco knew there was a threat and a sense of cruelty laced in her words. Her and Lucius finally walked out of the room, but not before she gave her son a warning look. Once they were gone, the door was closed and Draco cast a Muffliato charm. He stood there for a moment, staring at this girl, this beautiful, girl. 

     Suddenly years of feelings, pent up, drowned feelings rushed in. Feelings that he had crushed and locked away in third year. Feelings he had acted cruelly on in fifth year, as to cover any vulnerability, feelings that had told him not to kill Dumbledoor. Maybe it was that he had seen his classmate tortured, maybe it was these stupid feelings, or maybe it was that she looked so good damn beautiful, but it was then that Draco found himself running to where she lay, kneeling down his hands directed outwards in helplessness. 

     "Just do it Draco." He was taken aback, for one he wasn't even sure she had been fully conscious, second, she had called him Draco, all of the hatred and anger in her voice, yet she had called him by his first name, a thing she had not done in years. 

     He looked down at her arm, 'Mudblood', His mind went back to when they were younger, second year on the quidditch patch when he had uttered the horrific word that was now carved into her arm. Blood prejudice. A dark and twisted thing that Draco had decided not so long ago that he would never resort to again. Such a horrid thing that it would leave strong, stubborn Hermione Granger to be full of despair, to have all hope drained from her, to look so distraught, so angry, so... beautiful. 

     With his thumb he wiped a tear from her cheek and then the blood from her arm.

     "Do it Draco." How could the strongest, most driven person he had ever met be lying there, accepting defeat, tears piling into rivers on her face? How could she be giving in? He knew how, it was the mark on her arm, this engraving in her skin. A scar that would tell everyone she met that she was looked at as shameful, dirty, undeserving. How could he have ever contributed to this? Why did he just watch as his lunatic aunt tortured a girl he knew deep down mattered more to him than he would ever admit anyone did. How could-

      "Draco please!" She was sobbing more now, "Don't prolong it, just get it over with." Her voice was so quiet it was barely audible. He shook his head and before he knew what he was doing, he was lifting her limp body from the floor. One hand on her back, one on her head, tucked between her soft curls. She let out a soft gasp, as if expecting him to drop her or break her. Instead he pulled her into his lap, holding her head to his chest as he pulled her close.

     Not thinking about it, she reached to him, grabbing hold of his shirt, fisting it in her right hand, her left lay limp as the carving burned a chasm in her soul. And there he just held her, he held her when Belatrix came pounding on the door, he held her when Dobby arrived, he held her as he pulled her to Ron and Potter, and he held her when he tried to let her go to one of them, but she stayed in his arms. He held her when they apparated  and when they landed on wet sand and then he held her when he killed her and when he brought her body back to his twisted mother, his cruel aunt, his sick father. But for that day, he had her in his arms, he felt her need him, and god, she had been so beautiful.