Note: The title is from the song Friction by Imagine Dragons, which I was listening to whilst writing this and it just seemed to fit. Thank you so much to my best friend, K, who beta'd this for me. Bless her for not only betaing this piece, but the first piece I was writing for this fest, which ran away from me a bit (a lot) and is nearly 25 thousand words and not nearly half finished (you all may see it one day, but not sometime soon), but bless her for reading that and this and letting me bounce ideas off of her. Also, this is the first time I've ever written these two together, so hopefully I did alright.

Harry Potter was well fucked, and there was no one to blame but himself.

Well, himself and Severus Snape.

Not well fucked as in having some of the best and most regular sex of his life (though he was that also) but well fucked as in possibly having developed feelings for his most hated professor turned grudgingly civil colleague turned acquaintance with benefits, Severus Snape. At first, the two of them still had that same time-old animosity when he returned for eighth year and found that Snape, who he thought had died, was very alive and still as full of vitriol as ever. That year, he just kept his head down and studied nearly as hard as Hermione so he could pass his NEWTs and get a job teaching defense somewhere. Somewhere, as it turned out, was at Hogwarts. Which was amazing, the best teaching gig he could have possibly landed, but it also meant another year with Snape, more than one if he managed to do what every other defence teacher he'd ever had hadn't been able to do and last longer than a year. It had started out so tense that even observers were pained by it, staff meetings were unbearable and Hogsmeade visits were much less festive when both Professors Potter and Snape were chaperoning.

At least, until Headmistress McGonagall had decided she'd had quite enough and told the two in no uncertain terms that if they couldn't work it out, she'd have to find two new professors at the end of the year. So their animosity sort of just fizzled out into a barely civil civility. They didn't talk much outside of required meetings, but they still had this charged something between them. The talking at meetings became occasional small talk at meals, which lead to talking about students that were troublesome, which became grading papers together occasionally just so they could have some company, since neither really had much in the way of a social life.

Hermione was always inviting Harry along with her and Ron and a bunch of their friends from the Ministry (which would always include some nice witch or wizard one of them had met who just so happened to be single) or setting him up on blind dates. She was so adamant that he was lonely ever since he and Ginny broke up in the April of eighth year, even though he wasn't and didn't think he ever gave off any sort of indication that he was. He went to all these blind dates she arranged for him, had a few one night stands out of them, but didn't really follow up on any or enjoy the social event that was dating, but it made Hermione happy and so he did it because he didn't want her to worry.

One evening, he and Snape were both grading papers, when he realized it was time for yet another of his blind dates. He was collecting his papers and getting ready to leave when Snape asked him where he was going.

"I've got a date." He wasn't really sure why he was telling Snape this; yes they were civil and yes they spent time together sometimes, but they weren't really friends, they didn't really talk about their lives, they didn't really talk about anything important, they just spent time together mostly in silence.

"A date? I wasn't aware you were seeing anyone."

"It's a blind date. Uh, Hermione set it up. She thinks I'm lonely or something." Harry didn't really know why, but he didn't want Snape thinking he was seeing someone. He didn't really like him, he could barely stand the man, but part of him felt like he needed to tell him anyway.

"Can't even get a woman's attention on your own, Potter?" He was sneering but instead of making Harry angry or ashamed like it might've when he was eleven and terrified, it just made him interested, which wasn't something he'd felt in a while.

"It's a man tonight, actually. But, to answer your question, I am perfectly capable of getting someone's attention if I wanted, but I'm really not lonely. However, Hermione thinks I am, so blind dates." He shrugged, not looking at Snape even though he could feel the other man looking at him, especially after he mentioned that he was supposed to be seeing a man tonight, but it made Harry want to leave to floo into London to see whoever the hell he was supposed to see even less than he already did.

"So don't go."

"What else am I going to do with my night? I've finished all my marking and I've got nothing to do with my Saturday night."

"I'm sure I could find something for you to do." When Harry looked at Snape, he was pretty sure that the man was leering at him and suddenly Snape was looking a lot more interesting than whoever Hermione had set him up with this time.

"See that you do," Harry sat back in his seat across from Snape and decided to see what Snape would had in store for him. He wasn't disappointed.

After the first time they'd slept together, nothing really changed: they still bickered and sniped at each other, marked papers together in silence, and made small talk when they were together and not verbally sparring or sitting in complete silence. The only thing that really changed was the addition of sex into their routine, sex that was often fast and angry and a touch violent sometimes, but really really fantastic. Harry also removed the blind dates from his schedule; he told Hermione that he was really happy that she wanted him to be happy, but he was happy alone but that if he started looking for someone he'd let her know, so that was just another wonderful side effect of semi-regular sex with Snape.

The only problem with having semi-regular sex with Snape was that semi-regular sex slowly became semi-regular drinks and sex which morphed into drinks and sex and sometimes falling asleep together (which also meant waking up together, which was a whole new kind of awkward that Harry had never experienced until the first time that it happened). This led to their stilted conversations becoming more relaxed, their marking time becoming time spent to get to know each other, and the sex becoming less angry and a little more gentle and it almost always resulted in one of them staying the night.

This was how Harry ended up standing outside of Severus's door (he'd become Severus at some point as well, though Harry wasn't really sure when) on a Thursday night with a bottle of red wine in his hand, majorly fucked. Somewhere along the line, he'd actually gone and liked the git, and now he was going to tell him.

"Asphodel," He almost wished that the door wouldn't open, that this was a dream or something, but it did, and Harry felt trusted, trusted enough to have the password to the rooms of the most private and paranoid man possibly ever to exist, and it made him even more on edge, because every small thing meant so much to him and just when did he become so sentimental?

"I'm almost finished with this phase of the potion I'm brewing, I'll be out momentarily," Severus called from his lab and Harry had the fleeting thought of just leaving and trying to do this another time, but he knew he'd never get up the courage again, and he also knew that Severus already knew he'd been in here and wouldn't just let it lay, so he made himself comfortable in one of the two armchairs facing the fire to wait.

The moment that Severus came into his sitting room, Harry basically leapt out of his seat. "Severus, I can't do this anymore."

He didn't even get a chance to finish his statement before he was cut off, "Well, if you want to end our arrangement, Potter, thank you very much for letting me know, and thank you for the wine. You can show yourself out, I'm sure." He sounded so much like the Snape of Harry's school days that it made him feel a little sick.

"That's not what I meant. Well. Mostly. I can't have evenings spent with you talking and having casual sex. I can't do that anymore because I like you. I like you way too much for this to be a casual thing, and I thought you should know." He was talking so fast that Harry was nearly certain that he was tripping over his words in order to get them out before Severus had a chance to cut him off again. "I tried to hate you when the sex became more than just sex, I wanted to hate you, but I can't. You're witty and unpredictable and a good person to pass the time with, and, yes, you're kind of bitter and sarcastic, but it's part of the appeal at this point, and I really don't want to keep seeing you without seeing you. I've been trying to figure out if I should tell you for a while, but it never seemed like the right time, so I've come here tonight to just come out with it."

"I see." Harry honestly couldn't say how the other man was feeling, it was hard to tell in the best circumstances and impossible to tell now, but he hoped that they would end on somewhat friendly terms- returning to how they were when Harry was still in school would be absolutely unbearable.

"I'll just go now, I suppose, now that I've said my piece." He turned to leave, only to be stopped by a hand grabbing his upper arm.

"Stay."

"What? But I… I'm not doing casual anymore, Severus. I need to go."

"I understand what you've said, Harry, but, unlike myself, you tend to wear your heart on your sleeve. I knew this was coming, and I'm completely fine with commitment. Besides, scheduled nights having drinks and talking or going to a restaurant together aren't exactly casual."

"Then what are they?"

"Dates, Potter, we've been going on dates together. For over a month. Merlin, you really are daft sometimes." He was smirking when he said it and drawing Harry closer to him.

"So, just to be clear, we're together, not in a casual way, and you're okay with that? You want that?" Harry was chest to chest with Severus now, head tilting just slightly up to look him in the eyes.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying."

"Brilliant," Harry barely got the word out of his mouth before they were kissing, not rough or demanding, but slow and sensual and brilliant and Harry could get used to this, to being with Severus like this, with being partners.

And he did.