Harry is watching from his seat on the roof, sipping hot chocolate and petting Shrodinger the kitten as the backyard is used for war games, the entirety of it converted into sand, some parts raised to denote cities and military barracks.

Gellert is astride Mooney, the wolf-thing bounding through the squat structures that are ankle-high on him as Gellert surveys his strategy.

Tom is sitting up on the head of an enlarged snake withs a bird's eye view, contemplating. Occasionally the snake will duck down to get a closer view of all the tiny mud creatures killing each other but most of the time stays sitting in boredom.

Albus is sitting on a long-legged bench with Credence beside him, trying to teach the boy how to play as the bench walks them around, getting taller or shorter as needed.

They started with one army and can make several sets of moves. Gellert went the charismatic route, the public's favour depending on how hard Harry cheers for him when he makes speeches.

Albus went the insider route of integrating the army into the culture and promoting patriotism, the effect of which is decided by how easily he convinces Harry that his army's movements are justified and heroic.

Tom leaves death in his wake.

They can attack, move around, build supplies or recruit, and each move takes a differently allotted time depending on their already stabilised infrastructure and resources, and that changes with each 'month'. It's all very complex maths and stratagems and Harry has no idea what's happening half the time.

They all move at the same time, for a period of an in-game month, and wait if someone has yet to finish that particular month, which means it drags out into staring competitions sometimes as they think.

Death (back in his businessman body now) was playing at the start but refused to acknowledge the concept of weapons being needed to kill humans and lost rather quickly. A cultural difference, really.

The Unspeakable played a year in-game, then had to leave for work so passed it all onto Harry. Harry then destroyed the army from within in just four months, which everyone sarcastically applauded despite Harry insisting he was intending to do that.

Gellert finally makes his move to finish the month, and then takes his next move immediately after, sliding his army around the side of Tom's and bordering the coast of this made-up world map.

Albus and Credence disappear behind a privacy ward to reassess their plan. Tom is murmuring to himself, eyes narrowed.

"You should just hug and make up," Harry calls over to them from his sprawl on the rooftop.

Tom sneers. "You think I'd listen to you, Mr. Four Months?"

Harry splutters.

Harry tries to make bread for the first time in the new oven, to de-stress after a particularly bad mandatory park visit where Credence almost ate a girl for trying to touch him suddenly, and Gellert helps.

Gellert helps by enchanting the bread to be perfect; golden brown and crunchy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside, melt in your mouth, perfect with butter, fast baking time, impeccable gluten formation and-

And Gellert makes some kind of terrifying bread homunculus.

Harry hurls a knife and ducks behind an overturned table. "Why can't we have nice things?!"

The bread roars, wobbling on its base, bubbling ominously at the edges as it kneads itself and grows, the kitchen a mess, the bread now welding a rolling pin with various cutlery in it's top like spiked armour.

Gellert pops up and throws a cutting spell at it.

"Why are you making sliced bread?" Harry yells and scrambles up to throw fire next.

"Well you're making toast!" Gellert snaps.

"Don't yell at me, I'm very distressed by the situation!" Harry screams back.

Tom shoves them both aside and points the holly wand, glowing green on the end. "Avada Kedavra!"

The bread (sliced and toasted) goes still.

Harry purses his lips and tries to piece together a moral argument considering Tom just threw out the bloody killing curse right in front of Harry, but instead just drags a hand down his face. "You know what? I approve of you using The Unforgivables on bread."

"Oh, damn," Gellert muses. "I could have practiced my crucio."

Credence hesitantly steps into the room. "Um, I heard a lot of screaming. Is...everything okay?"

"It was the bread," Gellert explains, which explains nothing.

Tom is frowning. "Do we have to eat toast for the rest of the year now?"

"No one is eating that thing," Harry says quickly. "And Gellert is not allowed to enchant anything. Ever."

Gellert scoffs. "It was only one time-"

"I was frightened for my life," Harry cuts in. "I'm about to start crying, Gellert. Do you want me to cry?" he asks pointedly.

Gellert rolls his eyes. "No, I don't want you to cry."

"Good. Now excuse me while I...bury the bread? What do you do with stale bread? I can't feed this to ducks at the nearby pond."

"We probably could," Tom offers. "It's not animal cruelty if no one knows it happened."

"Look, I'm crying now," Harry says, definitely not crying.

"Please don't cry," Credence whispers.

Harry just melts. "Oh, Credence, it's okay. I'm just trying to make a point about Tom's dark humour."

"So you know it was a joke," Tom grumbles, holding his hands up in surrender. "I wasn't actually going to do it."

Harry looks around. "Death? I mean Dan - um, Danielle?"

Death bleeds out of Harry's shadow and reforms into an identical copy of him in pure, pitch black except for the bright, glowing greens eyes. "What...is that?"

"Would you like some toast?" Gellert offers cheerfully.

"No, I'm quite okay," the shadow Harry says. "You know it's not dead, right?"

Tom is shocked. "I used the killing curse."

"Well it's not alive either," Death admits. "Doesn't really have a soul, which is why the killing curse didn't work but it's more than just animation. No higher consciousness...interesting."

The damaged loaf starts twitching, crust expanding and contracting like it's breathing.

"What is it?" Harry whispers warily.

Death hums, narrowing green eyes. "It's closest 'cousin' physiologically would probably be a dementor."

Harry squats down and puts his head in his hands. "We made dementor bread."

"It's toasted," Tom points out. "So technically we made dementor toast."

Death shakes his head. "Harry, I'm going to be honest, this might be the dumbest thing I've seen you do and you've done a lot."

Harry starts making worrying noises, so Credence shuffles closer and lightly pinches the edge of Harry's jumper. "Harry? Would you like me to eat it?"

"No, it'll give you an awful stomach ache," Harry sighs and stands up again, hands on hips.

"I don't have a stomach," Credence says innocently, peering up at him.

Harry pauses and then slowly looks down at the Obscurus.

Five minutes later, they all gather around where the loaf used to be and bow their heads for a minute of silence.

"Did that count as genocide?" Gellert wonders. "Because it was the only one of its species so technically we wiped out the entire species-"

Harry puts a hand over Gellert's face to shut him up. "We will never speak of this again."

Tom is frowning. "Didn't you just give us a lecture about not using our new brother for evidence disposal?"

Harry puts a hand over Tom's face as well and shushes him gently.