And maybe one day when you're all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you're three, and that's okay. That's what I tell Mama when she's sad and needs to cry. Maybe she's feeling three.

She was crying when she died.

She'd always been an easy crier, starting to sob at the drop of a hat. Her sister had used that when they were young, pushing her buttons until the younger girl screamed at her and stormed off to her room in a watery rage. Her friends had laughed when she burst into tears over the smallest scenes in movies, and more than once, a concerned teacher had asked her if she was okay, only to learn that her favorite character had just died in the book she was reading.

As time went on, though, she had more serious reasons for her tears. They watered one friend's grave, then another. Then her parents'. Her sister's taunts were more personal now, and when she stormed off after that fight, she never came back.

Now, she cried for her husband, for his dead body downstairs and for the life they could have had together. She cried for her son, who never would even have a chance to grow into himself. She cried for Peter, who had betrayed them, for Sirius, who would doubtless take the fall, and for Remus, left all alone at the end of the world. She cried for herself, for the promising young girl she had once been, and for the tired woman she had become.

She cried, and she begged, and she sought mercy from an inhuman monster. "Take me instead," she said, and as her last tears fell on her son's crib, her wish was granted.

Quote from "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros