Noble

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Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Me no own

AN: Sorry for the delay QwQ. I've been super busy with all sorts of assignments and exams and been just stressed out in general. for the past 3 years yes

Thanks for all those who have reviewed and for all favs and follows! I don't plan on abandoning any of my stories, but I will not have time to do much about them.

Marvolo squared his shoulders, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand. They were in the dueling chambers which Frankenstein had practically warded against every known threat to man. The chamber looked to be endless as they were charmed with expansion charms that allowed them to essentially be a pocket universe. Coupled this with the wards, and no one even in the manor would notice if power equal to nuclear blast took place. Concentrating, he readied himself to attack. He knew that he had to put in a lot of effort to pass this seemingly easy task. The Dark Lord had control over his new powers, though not as much as he had control over his magic.

Time stood at a standstill for a brief, serene, moment. Marvolo's heartbeat quickened as he prepared himself.

Jumping high in the air, he looked at the Noblesse who was calmly waiting for him to launch an attack.

Their eyes met.

And then they were off, Marvolo attacking with an uninhibited vigor, not holding back any of his strength in an effort to injure his master. Said master was dodging the aggressive attacks without seemingly putting in any effort, but a frown was growing on his beautiful face.

Marvolo's attacks were full of aggression and power but lacked the refined grace of a true Noble and the control to direct the power in question. In fact, his attacks seemed like they were poor imitations of Frankenstein's initial techniques. Rai's frown became more pronounced as the one-sided spar continued.

The Noblesse noted that Frankenstein's techniques were far too incompatible with Marvolo's style, thus leading the Dark wizard to form an awkward equivalent that functioned for him, but was very bad in terms of quality. True, any other opponent than Frankenstein and Rai himself would not last against even this vastly imperfect technique, but that didn't mean it was acceptable for the Noblesse to have a servant that lacked in terms of grace.

Marvolo's attacks had begun to lack aggression as he began tiring, and the match was becoming boring. The former Dark Lord looked pitiful as he panted and heaved, and Rai looked quite unsatisfied with the performance of his newest servant.

Still, Marvolo had yet to give up, and though Rai was thoroughly disappointed with nearly all aspects of the day's performance, he had to commend the wizard for not giving in to his body's demands of stopping.

Finally, the sparring came to a halt as Marvolo seemed to have reached his limit. The man was panting heavily, sweat dripping from his handsome form which was clearly knackered into the next century. Rai was suspended in the air, his elegant silhouette unruffled by the one-sided spar.

Frankenstein had, in the meanwhile, been observing the spar from outside the room through a magic-infused glass with Draco and Narcissa.

The expressions on the faces of the two humans were simply hilarious. Jaws touching the floor, the usually elegant Malfoys minus Frankenstein looked more like very large goldfishes than anything else.

Draco, like every other student who had ever known Rai, knew that he was different, and his pure-blood father suddenly turning out to be a millennia-old scientist of the Muggle variety who was basically an indentured servant contracted to his classmate was a proof of this fact, but it had never truly sunken in as now.

Watching Rai play with an incarnation of the Darkest Lord in the History of Magic kind like he was an aggravated puppy proved that Draco knew nothing, even though he would have liked to believe himself in the know of matters surrounding Rai. After all, Draco considered himself one of Rai's close friends, despite the fact that half the school and everybody who had ever breathed in the terrifyingly beautiful boy's general direction considered themselves his close friend.

However, Draco was different from those sycophants. Mainly because he had been one of said sycophants, practically salivating at every opportunity they had a class together and bugging the living hell out of his year-mates for the better part of their first year. Surprisingly, it was a rather heated clash with the most unlikely person that sat him straight. It was, in fact, a muggle-born wizard from Gryffindor of all people that finally got through his skull.

Dean Thomas was everything Draco had been told to hate when his father had been...missing his memories. Draco could not say his father was insane then, as he was fairly sure regaining his memories had set more screws loose in his father's head, though he was decidedly more fun to be around now that he wasn't spouting pureblood bigotry and the Malfoy Code of Conduct at every chance, and Draco had told him as much gaining a snicker from the previous Dark Lord and a large smile from his father.

It was largely because of his clash with Dean that he had even developed the guts to utter those words. It had been a sunny, bright day in April when Dean had confronted Draco. As usual, Draco had been covertly following Rai around the school when he bumped into the muggle-born student, sending the poor boy tumbling to the ground wherein he, in turn, tumbled into Rai. Shocked silence had followed and Draco had panicked.

"Watch where you're going, mudblood!" he'd shouted, before running to an unamused Rai to check on him, not noticing how the other boy elegantly side-stepped him before he was hauling Dean up. Draco had been shocked. No one had ignored him, much less in favor of some unknown boy.

"Why do you touch him?!" the young Malfoy heir had shouted at Rai, who had looked wholly unperturbed. It wasn't Rai who'd answered.

"Because..." the Gryffindor had begun explaining as if he was describing the weather, as if he hadn't bumped into the most influential boy on the planet.

"...because he knows better than you, Malfoy. He knows that blood means nothing if you're blessed enough to be born with magic. That blood is the same if you bleed, or if I bleed. Blood is a powerful tool of harnessing magic, yes, but my blood is no different than yours in that regard. Most of all, he touches me because we're friends, and unlike some people who seem to favor stalkerish tendencies," Draco flinched, "I bothered to actually talk to him instead of putting him on a pedestal." With that, both the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor boys left, leaving a guilt-ridden, angry and shame-faced Slytherin in their wake.

It had taken Draco two weeks to fully process his anger, during which he distanced himself from the buffoons that were his bodyguards, and truly thought about what Dean had said. Anger had gone then, and shame and guilt remained.

The shame and guilt had ridden on Draco's mind for almost a month before he'd stood up with a determined glint in his silver eyes. It had been the end of the year feast, and Ravenclaw had utterly trounced the rest of the school, though no one really minded. Dumbledore had been twinkling merrily at the almost harmonical mood between the Houses, occasionally frowning at the Slytherin table which, when not sneering at the rest of the school, was glowering at their food. Sick of his housemates, sick of his own attitude, sick of the guilt and shame he'd felt whenever he saw a muggle-born, sick of fearing his father's reaction if he was to know Draco's thoughts, the Malfoy heir stood up suddenly, causing his cutlery to clang with his plate and Crabbe and Goyle to spray him with the foods in the mouths.

The Great Hall fell silent, and everybody turned to look at the usually impeccable heir being drenched in various kinds of half-eaten bits of food. But Draco had been beyond caring.

He ignored the disaster he was sure he looked like and marched to the Gryffindor table.

"I'm sorry." He'd confessed to a perplexed Dean Thomas.

"I'm sorry for being a bigot, and I'm sorry for being rude when it was my fault that you fell, and I'm sorry for calling you names." Draco continued, trying to ignore that the entire school was staring. Merlin, how did Rai get anything done because the entire school stared at him constantly, and there were clubs dedicated to spotting him around the school. Draco was feeling mightily uncomfortable under the weight of all the stares, and incredibly silly as well.

"Right." the Slytherin said lamely, seeing as no one was reacting beyond the staring. Dean blinked.

"I'll just go..." as Draco turned around to leave, embarrassed but finally free of the shame and guilt that had been gnawing at him for the past month, he was stopped by someone grabbing his hand. He turned around and stared in surprise. It was Rai. It shouldn't be a surprise, really, seeing as Rai never limited himself to the Ravenclaw table, much to Snape's consternation. However, it wasn't Rai who spoke.

"I.." Dean seemed to be struggling and shared a look with Rai, who gave an encouraging smile to the Gryffindor. Dean looked back at Draco, with the same determination he'd felt.

"I forgive you, Ma-Draco. Though," Dean smiled slyly, and before lobbing a piece of pie at Draco's head, who stood in stunned silence. Dean grinned at the look on his face.

"You might want to clean up" Silence reigned in the Great Hall.

"FOOD FIGHT!" shouted someone from the Hufflepuffs, and what followed was the single, most entertaining and biggest food fight ever. The teachers tried to stop them but then Flitwick hit McGonagall in the face with chocolate cake and they devolved into an impressive duel of transfiguration and charms that Draco would bet was historical, and if they hit Snape more than each other, no one mentioned it. Dumbledore's twinkle could probably be a Lumos maxima at this point.

And that was how he'd become one of Rai's closest friends. A smile tugged at the handsome young Malfoy heir's face as he reminisced about the incident. Turning his attention back to the beat-down the former Dark Lord was suffering, because even if Draco was impressed with the feats of magic Marvolo had been performing, one would be a complete moron to not notice that Rai batted each of those impressive feats away like they were flies. Draco had a smug look on his face as he thought about bragging about this to their friends. Hermione and Su would be green with envy!

Of course, Frankenstein's expression when he studied the spar was different, as he was furrowing his brow, disappointed in himself for not being able to train Marvolo to an acceptable level, disregarding the fact that it had been an impossible task given the time-frame he'd been given. He was the single most intelligent mortal to have walked the planet in his previous life, and now that he had access to true Magic, he should have been able to make a training facility that yielded better results.

Noticing that the spar was done, he quickly took down the wards and walked into the sparring area, or rather, the remains of the training room. Marvolo was on his knees, panting as blood and sweat poured out from his body. Frankenstein's Master was standing beside the poor wizard, looking absolutely impeccable as always. However, dread quickly filled Frankenstein.

Master was frowning.

"Master, what is the matter? Is there something that bothers you? Is it Marvolo? Is it the room? What can-" Rai broke Frankenstein's frantic train of questions with a raised hand.

"What has been bothering me, Frankenstein, is that you seem to have ignored something." His master's tone was severe. Frankenstein gulped.

"A-and what would that be?" he hesitantly asked. Rai sighed. He knew his servant thought himself to be vastly more intelligent than the rest of the populace, which was true but also caused him to be incredibly arrogant. Rai held a hand out to Marvolo, who took it gratefully, throwing Frankenstein a half-hearted glare.

"The fighting style you have been teaching Marvolo is wholly unsuitable for him. You forget that M-21, Tao and Takeo were modified, non-magical, humans whose styles could quickly adapt to yours, but Marvolo is a wizard." Rai emphasized the last word. Understanding dawned on the blond scientist's face.

"Nevertheless," Rai continued, giving a rare smile to Marvolo, who smiled back hesitantly, "Marvolo has shown amazing potential, seeing as he is able to hold me out of his mind during the battle, and his control of the magical aspect of his powers is admirable, though not perfect. His control over the powers he has been given to by me, however, is atrocious." Frankenstein winced as he heard the reprimand aimed at him.

"If I may ask, why can't you train me personally?" Marvolo asked hesitantly. Rai and Frankenstein shared a look.

"Why don't the two of you get cleaned up and we can continue this interesting debate in the living room over a cup of tea?" Narcissa interjected before they could continue.

They were all too happy to comply.

We're gearing up for the actual plot of this fic!

But I still can't promise you when the next chapter is going to be.

Read and review, please, and stream Black Swan by BTS!