Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Instincts

There are some things I've always known and will always know. For example, always throw spilt salt over your left shoulder for luck. Always keep rosemary by your garden gate. Never point the blade of a knife outside when you're setting the table. Never keep raw meat in the vegetable crisper. Always cross your heart when you pass a church. Those things are for certain; you don't know what they're origin is, they just are. Admit it you do at least two of them without even thinking about it. It's all right, everyone does.

But I'm getting off topic here. My point is there are some things that one knows for certain. But other things…They completely throw you off and make you stutter to a halt. An arm thrown casually over a shoulder, a leg brushed against another. These things seem unimportant. They seem that way. Sometimes, life can throw you a curve ball and a guy you've been perpetually mad at for five years suddenly turns into your best friend. What happens when that guy is really handsome and clever? What does it mean when your stomach drops every single time you see him? What happens when he can make you blush with a suggestive wiggle of the eyebrows? What happens when he gets up in your face jokingly and you want to kiss him for no apparent reason? Why do things do a complete one-eighty so suddenly and unexpectedly?

Why does your heart tell you one thing and your head remain stubbornly unmoving? Can't they just be united like they always used to be?

I have no answers to any of these questions. Does anyone ever really understand the mystical thing that is emotions? I reckon they don't.

I just need to know why it means so much when he touches me and looks at me or even talks to me. If I know that, I will be golden. I'll know exactly what's going on in this body of mine, and all of these things will stop confusing me to the point of madness.

My mother always says to follow your heart when it tells you to jump. My father always says to use common sense. My sister always says to do the first thing that comes to your mind. My best friend always says to do what you need to do. What do I say? I say…

Try and follow your instincts. But what happens when your instincts are telling you to snog the living daylights out of him, but something is stopping you? What is stopping you? Is it your mind? Your needs? Your fears?

There are just so many things that used to make sense that don't anymore. It used to be black and white: He was irritating and I never had any interest in getting to know him. But then these things keep getting in my way and I find myself knowing more about him than my best friend.

I just don't understand why things can't go back to the way they used to be: certain and reasonable and easy to follow. What was wrong with the old system?