Voldemort gets another letter that he needs to leave to reply to and Harry ducks out to the bathroom.

Only when James is alone does Tom Riddle step out, fully formed as a frozen sixteen year old student in Slytherin colours, too beautiful and so perfectly put together he still doesn't quite look real, with dark eyes and pale skin and impeccably combed hair.

And the first thing Tom does is insult James for "-horrendous, childish humour of writing dick jokes in a diary you just found and then running around touching everything you see like an untrained mongrel-"

"I always knew you'd look like a nerd!" James snaps back because he's never spoken to this person before in his life but he doesn't take that shit lying down and, admittedly, every time Harry says James couldn't win a fight just makes him more intent on starting one.

James lurches to his feet, sixteen as well but with tanned skin and messy hair, smudged glasses and casual clothes already rumpled. "Look at you, you're such a cliché – bet you had minions in Slytherin like lording over kids means you have power, bet you think you're special because you were the smartest teenager in a school, like that means anything-"

Tom throws out a hand and James is blasted back, slamming into the armchair and the whole thing topples over.

James only laughs and staggers back up. "Get a wand, asshole, let's fucking go."

"I don't need a wand," Tom spits out, the sneer twisting his beautiful features into something monstrous. "You want to see power? I'll show you."

James pulls out his wand and throws it to the ground, rips off his robes as well and shoves up his shirt sleeves. "I'm not going easy on you just because you're made out of paper."

James dives behind another chair as a spiral curse sails over his head and rolls back to his feet, dragging up the floor as a shield but it stutters and moves lopsided. "Come on, come on!" he mutters.

"Pathetic," Tom hisses and his power builds, dense enough to be seen as shifting heat waves, kicking up wind and making his robes billow out.

Tom hits the shield with a blasting hex and James ducks away, a long line of red forming along his cheek as a piece of wooden shield cuts through him. In a constant sprint, James dodges between chairs, hurls broken off pieces, ducks behind cover until he's chased out and tries to get closer to Tom all while the magic is throwing him back, James barely weaving around curses in time.

But he can't keep it up forever, there's only so much cover he can hide behind in this sitting room before it's all blown to shreds.

James struggles back to his feet after slamming into a wall so hard it shook dust from the chandelier hanging over them.

A sharp piece of broken off porcelain from a vase drops from James' hand, a wide, manic grin on his face. His shirt buttons are ripped open, three concentric runes carved into his chest – a simplistic siphon. Because if James doesn't have enough magic power then he can just take Tom's, Merlin knows there's more than enough being thrown around.

James pulls at the floor with a simple gesture and it lurches up immediately, snapping to glass, forming spikes, launching itself at Tom.

"You think you can fight me with my own magic?" Tom snarls, exploding the glass stakes mid-air. He hasn't moved a step from his starting position -takes pride in not needing to- but he pulls in his power, wraps it around himself so the siphon no longer has access.

"It's mine now, asshole!" James cackles and when his hands move, the morning sunlight through the large windows catches off the edge of thousands of razor-sharp shards of glass, suspended in the air around Tom.

Tom's eyes go wide.

It's a tornado of razors, cracking against Tom's shield, half falling to the floor and shattering further as they collide but there's still more than enough still roiling, a cloud of glass that shifts and forms, transfigured into whips that lash out against the stone Tom pulls out of the walls.

It's only after a brief, violent, vicious few seconds but it stutters and droops, already using too much siphoned magic that James is running out of and he can't do wandless like this, not in a fight.

Harry bursts back into the room, panting from sprinting across the manor when he first heard the crashing sounds. Voldemort is only a step behind but he's unhurried and seems to see no problem with any of this.

James power-slides on his knees under a stone shield raised up to block a strike from his glass whip and lurches to his feet, planting a foot into Tom's stomach. Tom folds over, the breath forced out of him, and James grabs the back of Tom's head, slamming his knee up into a nose so hard it throws Tom flat onto the ground.

All Harry can think is that Voldemort is going to murder his dad, and James will actually deserve it this time.

The stone and glass crash to the ground and fall apart, skittering across the sitting room. James stumbles over Tom's legs and falls too, barely catching himself above the other teenager.

Tom is sprawled on his back, hair mussed and clothes ripped in a dozen different places, nose broken and bleeding profusely all over his lower face. James is on his hands and knees above him, exhausted, shirt open to bare the runes he cut in with blood now seeping all the way down his torso and into the top of his pants, glass in his hair, aching all over from being slammed into things.

"I bet you think you're special," James mocks and then just laughs.

Tom throws him across the room where James hits the ground and rolls limply, already passed out. Harry blocks the next curse, falling to his knees at James' side and raising his wand towards Tom with his teeth gritted.

Can he fight two Dark Lords? No.

Will he do it anyway for James? Fuck yes he will.

Voldemort places a hand on Tom's shoulder when the teenager staggers up. "It's over."

"Not until he's dead," Tom hisses.

"You're bleeding everywhere," Voldemort scoffs. "And it was done by a boy who can barely even use wandless magic."

Tom whips towards Voldemort with a glare on his face, shrugging off the man's hand. "I won!"

"Maybe you didn't lose but you certainly didn't win anything here, beating someone I already own." Voldemort moves past a stunned Tom and holds his hands out to a scowling Harry. "Come now, I highly doubt you know any healing spells."

Harry looks down at an unconscious James and grits his teeth.