Chapter 1: Out of Time
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Futurama or any other work that may be included or referenced in this fanfiction story. All rights associated with those properties belong to their respective owners. This disclaimer applies for all additional chapters that may be added to this story.
AN: Even in the cannon episodes, Futurama tends to play very fast and loose with the topics of sex and violence (otherwise there wouldn't be a 'pubic library' instead of a public library and suicide booths as well as killer robots wouldn't be quite as common). Please consider this as a warning for what lies ahead.
It wasn't the betrayal that caught Harry Potter off guard. It was the method. The last thing he had expected Wizarding Britain to do was to dump him into a cryo freezing tube in New York City of all places. Apparently, they wanted to keep him around in case another Dark Lord popped up (Dumbledore apparently hated doing his own dirty work but loved taking the credit after swooping in at the last minute). So that had ruled out the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. Azkaban was out because too many wizards knew about it. While there might be Wizarding prisons in other countries, Dumbledore no longer had the pull that he had prior to the Triwizard Tournament in the countries that had good prisons.
The Draught of the Living Death hadn't even been considered for some reason. Instead, they had literally decided to dump him off on the American Muggles. After all, what wizard or witch would look for him here? So long story short, he was getting Demolition Man'd without the benefit of mental training (or rehabilitation) that those unlucky bastards went through.
He was a bit annoyed that he had gotten caught. Then again, he hadn't expected them to strike the very moment that Tamlyn Riddle had appeared to die. He found himself hoping that the Dark Lady had managed to pull off another unlikely survival. If only so that he'd be thawed out sooner than later. That said, he doubted that she would strike soon enough for the wizards to remember him, especially with how both Dumbledore and Hermione Granger liked to keep their secrets.
Harry had allowed himself to be captured once the betrayal became imminent. He hadn't had the energy to fight off Dumbledore's stooges and escape. On the plus side, going along willingly had resulted in them merely paralyzing him, throwing him in the tube and flash freezing him. Unfortunately, while his mind was somewhat active, his body was not, and his magic was forced to keep him alive despite being completely frozen. Or at least, that's what he thought. Truthfully, he wasn't sure if that was really the case.
He felt himself suddenly warm up and his magic seemed to let out a sigh of relief. A cheery ding sounded and the door to his tube decompressed and popped open. Harry just stayed there a moment to attempt to get his bearings then he stepped out of the tube. He heard a science fiction-esque door opening and footsteps.
"WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!"
"Why do you always have to say that," muttered his companion.
Harry just stared at the two of them with a bland expression on his face.
"COME, YOUR DESTINY AWAITS!"
With that pronouncement, Harry found himself escorted to another section of the facility. This one had a medical table in it with a disturbing apparatus above it. There was a purple haired woman wearing dark black trousers and a lime green jacket that had her back to him. On hearing the door closed, the woman turned around, revealing her most distinctive feature, a large singular eye. Considering he had seen Lady Voldemort naked before she had adjusted her appearance to fix Pettigrew's botched ritual, Harry honestly wasn't bothered by the eye.
"Hello, I'm Leela, your Fate Reassignment Officer. Now it is New Year's Eve, and I'd like to get out of here early for a change so hopefully you and the next guy won't cause any trouble. Now what's your name?"
"Hydrus Black," replied Harry without batting an eye.
Luckily, she just wrote the name down, "Nice accent. Not a whole lot of defrostees have it."
"I'd hope not seeing as I'm British," a glimpse of a blimp outside the window with the year 3000 on it caught his eye, "Great Britain is still a thing, right?"
"Not really. If you're talking about the country. Earth's under one government now, and every four years there's an election for the Presidency of Earth. Now before your fate is decided we've got to do a medical evaluation. I'm going to need you to strip and hope on the Probulator."
"Isn't it supposed to be the third date before the probing happens," snarked Harry.
"Eh, I haven't got any in a while, so it'd probably be the first date. Now strip."
Harry took off his clothes and his fake glasses. Then he hopped on to the table.
"You know most men who come out of cryo try to cover their love tentacle. Granted with the heft yours looks like it has, I can see why you wouldn't bother."
"Is that a come on?"
"If you were the last person of the day, definitely," replied Leela, licking her lips.
"As far as I know I have no urgent business after this. If you don't mind someone with no experience."
"No experience," she asked, her big eye getting slightly bigger in surprise, "What were the women of your time thinking? Seriously, if the results from this physical were public, you'd have to beat off all the skanks with a Blernsball bat."
"No bloody clue. Most of them were too busy staring at my scar to look lower."
"Know that feeling," she muttered, "People are so busy looking at my eye that they completely forget to ogle my boobs. By Omicron Persei 8, if they spot my boobs before the eye and then notice the eye, they run off screaming."
"I'd take the screams over some of the curses that were sent my way. Well assuming they had the decency to run away while screaming, not just stand there."
She laughed, "Too true. Good earplugs are so hard to find. Speaking of which, normally people have screamed by now in the Probulator."
"Don't get me wrong, it's uncomfortable as all hell. But I've gone through worse. You see that round circular mark on my right arm near the shoulder? Got that from a bloody giant snake when it bit me. Felt like all my blood had been replaced by acid and was trying to dissolve me from the inside out. Also been electrocuted in a way that made every set every damned nerve ending on fire and caused me to lose control of my body till the fucking sadistic bastard cut off the power source."
"Do me a favor and don't share those ideas with any of the robots you meet out there. Some of them already have a 'kill all humans' fetish, we don't need to give them ideas on how to make it more painful."
"Yeah…I could use a break from people and things trying to kill me or stab me in the proverbial back. No need to add more beings to that list."
"You must have had quite the life in the years before you got frozen."
"It was certainly interesting."
There were a few minutes of relative silence then the machine stopped analyzing him.
"Unfortunately, we should speed you along. Don't want Terry and Lou to unfreeze the next guy while we're still getting you set up. Now let's see. Not a whole lot of records for Hydrus Black just a few ancient identification documents in the system. Ditto with Harry Potter," she paused and gave him a look.
"Wanted a bit of a new start," explained Harry unapologetically, as he hopped off the table and began dressing, "Being named Harry Potter hasn't brought me a lot of good things."
"Fair enough," she replied with a shrug, "Just weird to see someone with two valid ids. Speaking of weird, how are you not dead from all this venom in your veins?"
"Stubbornness? I mean, I did get some antidote but the amount of that compared to the venom doesn't really explain why I'm still kicking."
"Huh. Let's see, you've had multiple broken bones and strangely the bones in your left arm are a good 12 years younger than the rest of your bone structure. Evidence of malnutrition in your early childhood. You've fixed your eyes. Your back's…"
"A mess of scars. My Uncle had a drinking problem and an anger problem. His logic was that no one would notice a few more scars on the 'good for nothing freak' we use as slave labor cause he needs to 'earn his keep.'"
"Uncle's name," asked Leela dangerously.
"Vernon Dursley. The one from Surrey England in the 1990s in case there's a poor bastard who shares the walrus's name."
"Apparently, he died of an aneurysm. As far as your other relatives go…your cousin Dudley somehow managed to have a descendant survive to the present. One Hubert Farnsworth. He lives here in New New York."
"I guess I'll look him up. Who knows, maybe he'll be my first decent relative and at least help me get a lift back to London so I can check to see if my bank's still there."
"Your guess is as good as mine. Don't have much experience with relatives myself. Now let's get your career chip sorted."
There were a few sounds from the electronics as Leela searched through the database.
"That's weird. Never seen anyone with the 'Fixer' job before. Looks like you could technically do any job you wanted to. Most people get slotted into narrowly defined jobs."
"Well, I do have experience gardening, cooking, and housekeeping as well as…'fixing' things."
"Well, hold out your hand for a moment."
Harry cast a suspicious glance at the weird contraption with a spike at the end before holding out his hand. Sure enough, there was a moment of pain as the device inserted the career chip into his hand. Thankfully the pain and the weird feeling went away quickly.
"That's it."
"So, where should I wait for you to finish your shift?"
He noticed her eye widened again in surprise, "You were serious about that? I thought you might have been joking around to keep from thinking about what the Probulator was doing."
Harry had to bite down a response about Sirius being his godfather…damn he missed that mutt.
"I was earnest with my offer earlier. If you don't mind someone who's got no experience in that department, I'm willing to accompany you and try to keep up with whatever comes next."
She smiled, clearly pleased with his answer. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a few bills.
"There's a restaurant across the way. Why don't you get yourself something to eat there, Hydrus? It'll at least be an hour to process the next guy, and I don't want you running out of energy when we try to bring in the new year with a bang."