Ill Conceived Plans

Friends Forever

Dane blew out an angry breath and stared intently at the trees outside the car, they were old, large and very green, some with branches that swept across the road. It was like being in a fairytale, or Midsummer Night's dream – the play his mother had taken he and his sisters to in London.

And then up ahead, up in a tree, just before they got to the house, Dane saw something curious. Something curious indeed. It was a figure, a child, a boy about his own age sitting in a tree in front of the house, legs dangling down over the road. He couldn't see the face, a large book obscuring that from view and a cap leaving him unable to work out if it was red-haired George or dark-haired Neville, but from the length of those legs, it wasn't either, unless they'd had massive growth spurts in the past few weeks. It had to be Charlie then. Dane was curious, curious to see what he was reading, curious to see what he looked like, just curious.

His father pulled up in the drive outside the house, the car tyres crunching on the gravel drive as it stopped. Exiting the vehicle he turned around just in time to see Charlie – looking for all the world like Puck from Midsummer Night's – drop the book to the grass below and climb nimbly down the tree. The long legs, not unlike his own, meant "Puck" was at the car in a matter of seconds. Dane still couldn't really make out his face, the cap pulled down tight, casting shadows until the child was right in front of him. And then a surprising thing happened.

"Puck" pulled off his cap, shaking his head so that a wild riot of brown hair spilt out around his face. Except it wasn't a he, no, although dressed like a boy and not particularly curvy yet, this was definitely a girl, a strange girl indeed. A few years later, reading the first Harry Potter, Dane couldn't help laughing recalling this moment, the first moment he met her, wondering if JK Rowlings had used his good friend as an inspiration for Hermione Granger because she looked and acted for all the world like Hermione. He made sure they saw the movie together not as a date, they didn't date, it wasn't them, they were just, well, them. But he laughed and pointed when he finally saw Hermoine on screen, Charlie had huffed indignantly saying they were nothing alike while subconsciously touching her brown hair to make sure none of the parts of the wild creature on her head had escaped its ponytail tethering.

But at this moment on the Huntington Estate in the middle of Surrey, they were years from Hermione Granger, years from Cambridge where they would both go to study, years from adulthood.

They were just two gangly, and what Dane didn't realise at that moment, lost young children needing a friend.

At this moment his mouth flew open. He heard his father chuckle behind him but he didn't turn, he couldn't. He was caught in her eyes, big and green - luminous and intelligent, watchful.

She thrust a hand out towards him.

"You must be Dane Thomas Hilditch, I'm Sarah Charlotte Huntington but my family calls me Charlie – I don't care for it much, my best friend calls me Fox – as in Fox Hunt – Huntington, I like Fox –you can call me Fox if you like. Can I call you Dane or maybe Willy – you look like the actor who plays Willy Wonka, he's got those curls too?" she said all in one burst hardly stopping to draw breath.

Dane gaped.

Here in front of him was a force of nature, that was apparent immediately. He looked down at the hand still being offered to him, at the book now tucked under Sarah Charlotte Huntington's arm "Midsummer Night's Dream a Fairytale".

He smiled and ran a hand nervously through his mess of bouncy blonde curls which he had indeed been told (on a great number of occasions) made him look like Gene Wilder from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 

Blue eyes still wide taking in the curious creature in front of him, he tentatively moved his hand forward towards her and she took it smiling, pumping it vigorously before leaning in conspiratorially. For a moment Dane was worried she was going to kiss him and went to move away but instead she looked over to his father, the older Hilditch now out of the car and walking towards them, and whispered in his ear.