The first thing I think is that that was never supposed to happen.

Harry Potter wasn't supposed to ask me to Slughorn's Christmas Party, he was supposed to get up the courage to ask Ginny.

So why did he just ask me to go with him?

"Ooh, I'd love to, Harry," I say, because there isn't much else I can do.

"See you at six, then," he says.

I'm sorry, Harry. Please, please believe that I am.

"I don't think you should be an Auror, Harry," I say conversationally. Everyone looks at me, and Sibyll is smiling ever-so-faintly, because crazy Luna Lovegood says the funniest things. Of course, they all know what I'm about to say, because there's usually a rehearsal, and today has gone mostly according plan. Enough so that we are all still acting by the script. "The Aurors are part of the Rotfang Conspiracy," I continue, "I thought everyone knew that. They're working to bring down the Ministry of Magic from within using a combination of Dark Magic and gum disease."

Harry inhales half his cup of mead.

While he chokes and sputters, still laughing, even Severus allows himself to crack a tiny smile. He doesn't believe in smiling on the job at all, says it detracts from his immersion into his character.

But in this happy, laughing moment before Draco is dragged in, right on cue, all I can think of is how much of a lie this is, this room and these people.

Would Harry choose this, if he had a choice?

And so when Harry's curiosity is piqued by Severus' not-so-subtle dragging off of Malfoy, I abruptly turn, and and follow him.

This isn't planned. This isn't what supposed to happen.

Harry is supposed to go on and find Sev and Draco arguing, and that will set the stage for everything that is to follow, from the Death Eater invasion to Dumbledore's death.

But what really happens is this: I go up to him, and I whisper to him, "Do you trust me?"

I have decided, like the story of Gideon in the Bible that my mother used to read to me, that I will ask him the question that he should always, always answer "No" to. But if he does answer yes, then it will be a sign, and I will tell him. Let fate decide.

"I trust you," he says, and I can see it in his eyes.

"Then I will tell you," I whisper, "that none of this is real. Your whole life has been staged, from meeting Ron to Lord Voldemort. You are going to follow Severus and Draco and hear them arguing about an Unbreakable Vow, and then you'll go to the Weasleys' home for Christmas, and Ron will quiz you a thousand times about it, just to ingrain the moment in your memory, and then someday Draco and Severus and Dumbledore will stage an elaborate scene in which Dumbledore dies, and you'll remember their conversation. I can prove this to you, Harry - I can tell you a thousand things I should never have known."

But somehow, the boy shakes his head. "No," he says quietly. "I trust you. Are you going to help me?"

"As much as I can," I swear. It's too late now to do anything else, Harry Potter. From the moment I first saw you with my own eyes, first realized that this was a living, breathing person whom I would lie to about everything, our lives were hurtling on to this point, where I would betray everyone else, and break your world apart. "Let's go."

His Invisibility Cloak is useful now. There was a great deal of argument by the Directors about whether everyone else should be able to see him, just for reference, but it was eventually decided that people might accidentally start when he appeared even though he was supposed to be invisible, or some such. So now we do sneak out under it, and no one can see us in the hallways.

But I am not so naive as to imagine that there is not someone with a Map, not unlike Harry's Marauder's Map, watching us all the time. We have about three minutes, I estimate, to get out of the Hogwarts grounds. And then we see whether I can perform Side-Along Apparition without killing us both. Whether I can give you a chance, and it is truly only a chance, to live your own life. To have a life not shaped by a thousand actors keeping you "under control", but to make yourself, and your own life. A life formed not by human hands, but yours and God's alone, if there is a God. That is all I can promise you, Harry Potter.

I don't know if this is some wild prank, but I'm under my invisibility cloak, following Looney Lovegood in a mad dash through Hogwarts to the edge of the grounds, because she claims my life has been staged.

But I am following her, because when she told me, she looked sane, saner than anyone I'd ever seen. Is it because they are all actors, always, and she is showing her true self?

Together, we sprint out of the Great Hall and across the grass to the dark gates far ahead. Somewhere along the way, Luna pulls the Cloak off of both of us, and stuffs it somewhere.

"Don't need it anymore," she pants.

I'm almost beginning to think we might make it away from here when there's a sharp crack to the left.

"Lumos!" a voice cries, and I see Professor McGonagall standing with her wand aloft, looking for us. "Harry, stop!" she yells. I want to stop, because it's Professor McGonagall, but Luna is already pulling my hand so hard it hurts, and my feet are moving of their own accord.

More cracks, more shouts of incantations, and Luna and I are both running, running in the confused darkness, but still on towards the gates...

Crack.

Dumbledore is standing directly in front of us, blocking the way, and there's still a good fifty feet to go. Luna freezes by my side.

"Harry," he says, his voice radiating kindness and warmth and understanding. "Luna, poor girl, was hit earlier today with a Confundus Curse. She has brought you on a wild chase to nowhere. But I am disappointed you have been so gullible as to let yourself be led this far."

"Professor," Luna says, the word a mockery of its usual meaning, and I wonder if she normally calls him Albus. She did call Snape 'Severus,' and they are co-workers of a sort, after all. "Professor, if you are any sort of teacher, let us go."

"My dear girl," he says. "If I were to send you out into the cold world, you would vanish forever in a pop of Apparition, and how should we find you if you were dying, cold and alone because we allowed you to leave under a curse?"

"If I am Confounded," she says, slowly and coldly, "then we will return after a few hours, when it has worn off. However, I am now more sane than I have been in my entire life."

And then I realize something. If the professors can Apparate in the grounds, can we not Apparate out?

In my lowest voice, I whisper this to Luna.

"No," she murmurs under her breath. "It is a special loosening of the bonds; it only allows movement about the grounds, not in or out..."

"You liars," she says suddenly, breaking off and addressing herself to Dumbledore once more. "What gives you any right to take a child and lie to him his entire life?"

A pressure on my left hand, which she had grabbed when Dumbledore appeared, is the only warning I get before we fall into a dark, airless blackness, squeezing me just as hard as when Dumbledore Apparated with me during the summer.

I managed to think that Luna just said we could not Apparate out before we land and I realize just why Luna is a Ravenclaw.

We are on the very, very edge of the grounds, and it is one step to freedom.

"Goodbye, professor," Luna says lightly, and then she drags me through the gates. I hear a curse being shouted as we vanish, and Luna's body strikes heavily against mine, but it isn't until we appear again, somewhere I don't recognise, that I know what the curse was.

"Luna," I whisper, catching her in my arms as she falls, the front of her robes dark and wet.

"I'm sorry," she rasps. "They're - they're going to hunt you for... for the rest of your life. I didn't mean..."

I shake my head. "No. I don't want to live in a lie. And maybe someday when I've proved I can be trusted, they'll stop chasing me."

She smiles weakly up at me, and I wipe away a thin trickle of blood from her mouth. "I'm glad," she whispers. "I want you to be happy."

"I am," I say, and it's not true now, but it will be. It is my last promise to her. "I really am, Luna."

"That's good," she says softly, and her eyes slide shut a little. "But I'm so tired now."

"Sleep," I say, my voice not sounding like my own. "And tomorrow, Luna, you'll wake up again..."