A/N: all righty thanks for the reviews everyone, it seems that there are people out there who like my short stories, Yeah! For those who are wondering why I am able to post this so fast, well this little story has been floating around my computer for a couple weeks and I just finished it a day or two before I started posting. Ok, well on to the next chapter.

Chapter 2

Attempt Number 1

Severus was well aware that leaving the toilet seat up annoyed Hermione to no end, and to be perfectly honest, that is why he did it. It had first begun innocently enough as it were. He had been a bachelor for something like twenty years before he became interested in Hermione in any manner other than that of a student/teacher relationship. He had always left the toilet seat up, as he was the only one using it. It was perfectly natural for him to see the underside of the seat and hardly ever see the top. He did not completely understand the whole need for it to be down at all times. It should have been perfectly natural to always check the seats position when planning on doing anything in that particular room. With a deep mental sigh he resigned himself to having to hear about the state of the toilet seat for the rest of his life. He figured that he would never understand women and how their brains worked or why they made such a big deal about it in the first place.

He had had to admit to Hermione's intelligence, beauty and wit after the war and especially after she had come back to Hogwarts to teach. She had been gone for three years after she had graduated, the war taking up one of those years and the two others were dedicated to her schooling. She had come back to take Minerva's place as she was now Head Mistress after the unfortunate and untimely death of Dumbledore by Severus' hand. Severus had been acquitted of murder by the Wizagamot after evidence regarding the unbreakable vow that Dumbledore had made him make concerning his death. He may not have been welcomed back with open arms, but he had been offered his old job and salary back. He could not refuse, knowing that there were very few who would hire him otherwise.

Soon after Hermione had arrived back at Hogwarts she had been making an effort to talk to him. He had at first resisted, but he finally relented after picking some of the hardest topics he could think of to carry a conversation, and watched as she responded intelligently and with ease. Soon their conversations turned away from academics and into more personal things. Finally about a year after she came back he haltingly asked if she would like to go with him to a seminar on the properties of different muggle items in potions and then catch dinner afterwards. She had beamed at him and accepted immediately.

Soon after the seminar they began to officially date and within a year he proposed. She accepted and he had been nothing but happy for weeks afterwards. This still had not changed, he still loved Hermione greatly and believed he would never tire of her. There were however, a few things he wished he could change about her, or more specifically, things she always did that seemed to annoy him. One of the main things, was her tendency to sing in the shower. He loved to hear her voice when she would speak to him and especially liked to encourage her to sing his name in many octaves when they were alone and the door well warded. But the one thing he could not stand was her shower singing voice, especially in the shower where the acoustics of the marble bathroom would amplify her voice. The problem was that she was quite tone deaf and seemed to sing the same song, in the key that she was most ill-equipped to sing in, over and over again. He was even beginning to hate that certain song no matter who sang it he had heard it so many times, which annoyed him, because he had originally loved that song.

After asking dropping many hints that perhaps she should not sing in the shower, he finally had given up. He had tried to put a silencing spell on the bathroom door, but he soon found that even if he did, the sound still managed to seep through and attack him. He knew that he could not come out and tell Hermione that she sang badly, after all he was a male Slytherin, nothing was ever stated plainly. But more importantly, Hermione was a female Gryffindor. And as a Gryffindor she was prone to having a strong streak of pridefulness directly next to the streak labeled 'feelings can be hurt easily' and 'will probably take such a callous comment the wrong way'. So Severus decided that he would resolve the issue by adding something else to the mix, leaving the toilet seat up after he had finished. He actually made it a point on days that he was feeling terribly bad, to go into the bathroom after she had left the area and putting the seat up, because he could. How exactly he figured that this would help is a bit of a mystery, but it might have something to do with misery loves company or just the sadistic side of him coming out in a rather passive aggressive way. The exact reasons are unknown, but the point is that he would do it, on purpose.

Now Severus was faced with a new problem. He had thought little of the fact that Hermione had left one Saturday and come back late carrying a large package wrapped in nondescript brown paper wrapping. She often went out on Saturdays and came back with packages of things she needed. He actually didn't even think much of it when he had spied a large amount of brown paper in the trash the next day. What he should have noticed however was that on the other side of the brown paper was a flashy red and gold sticker that read Weasley's Joke Shop. He however did notice the sticker after presented with his new problem. The toilet seat would not move. It was stuck with what seemed like a permeate sticking charm to the bowl, except that wasn't the whole problem, this toilet seat seemed to have a personality as well. Every time that he would use the loo the seat would somehow conjure water out of thin air and squirt it back at him! This could not stand! He would not allow it! He decided that if it was a war that she wanted than it was a war that she would have on her hands. So later that week when he was in Diagon Alley to pick up ingredients from the apocathary he decided that he would also pay the twins a little visit, he also had a favor to call in from George.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and as before 5 reviews please, I always love to hear what you all think. Oh and yeah, I know that I spelled apocathary wrong, but I really can't find any place that it is spelled right and spell check won't talk to me any more, I think it has had one too many heart attacks with my spelling issues, it just puts up a little drop down bar that says no suggestions. Stinker.

As always I have to mention my wonderful fan fic sis and beta Skydancinghobbit who is the one to blame for me writing too much fan fic grin. She also has some good stuff up so go check out her stuff too if you have the time. Hope you all enjoy- Dragons Quill