A/N: Here is the very first chapter of The Picnic. This chapter is short, and all of them will be, because I make them end where they should end. So nobody yell at me for the shortness! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, this is just merely fanfiction.

Hermione sighed, laying back on her picnic blanket and staring up at the moving clouds above her.

Today was supposed to be the day for the perfect picnic, with her lovely boyfriend Ron Weasley. Hermione had gotten everything prepared; the food, the drinks, the place, the when, everything imaginable. But it was all for nothing, apparently. Ron had owled a few minutes before she was to floo over to his home to bring him to their picnic spot, to inform her that something had come up, and that he couldn't join her. Again. This had happened on several occasions. Whenever Hermione had planned something for them, a date, a trip, Ron had bailed. Why she thought he wouldn't this time? Hermione wasn't sure. It seemed as if he was avoiding her, hiding something from her. But, refusing to let his absence ruin her day, she set off to her picnic date, dateless.

That's how Hermione ended up where she was now, in a park in Muggle London, alone, gazing up at the sky.

Absorbed in her thoughts, Hermione hadn't noticed the stare of a young blonde man a few feet away from her, his eyes narrowed. As she finally got up from her position to grab a bottle of water she had packed in her basket, she felt his stare, and slowly raised her warm eyes to meet the man's cold ones. Hermione glanced away quickly, suddenly confused and panicked. She'd know those cold, grey eyes anywhere.

They were the eyes of Draco Malfoy.

Fumbling with her water bottle, Hermione quickly averted her gaze from his, and turned her back on him. Taking deep breaths, she twisted opened the cap of the bottle, and took a few sips of the water, processing the recent turn of events. What was Draco Malfoy, hater of all muggles, doing in Muggle London of all places? This made no sense. Maybe it wasn't him. Should she check? One glance couldn't hurt, right? Or could it?

Before she could talk herself out of it, Hermione quickly turned back around, pretending to be putting her bottle back into the basket and to search for her book. She slowly lifted her eyes, to see a pair staring right back at her. Hermione's eyes widened, and she saw the corner of the man's mouth raise into a his trademark smirk. Hermione turned back around grabbing her book, and opening it to a random page. That was definitely Malfoy.

What was she supposed to do? Leave? No. That would show that she was scared. But she couldn't just stay here when he was mere feet away. She closed her eyes, attempting to scan her brain for a solution to this undesirable problem. Instead she found herself thinking about how he had changed, appearance-wise. He was taller, more muscular, than he she last saw him. His face was more sculpted, and his lips were- she stopped that thought. Despite who he was, Hermione couldn't really say that he was unattractive. Bloody hell, what was she thinking? She had a perfectly handsome boyfriend, already. A boyfriend that deserted her every time she planned something. A boyfriend that she hadn't seen in days. Now that she thought about it, Hermione really didn't have a relationship with Ron. They never saw each other, and whenever they tried to, something would come up. She might as well be single. She sighed, and a voice brought her back into the real world

"You can read upside down, Granger?" she heard a deep voice say from behind her. "What a wonderful skill to have."