A/N: Hello everyone! I have finally given into the urge to write this story. I really don't know where it is going and I can't promise anything... the end may be quite a hike away! This first chapter is just me 'testing the waters', as it were; if you feel I've got the characters right and like the style then I'll continue. Have fun!

Disclaimer: Hmm, who does own Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Is it Roald Dahl's family, or Warner Bro's? Well, it definitely isn't me, anyway! Now get on and enjoy the story!

Prologue

Magic is a very strange thing. It comes in all shapes and sizes, but the oddest thing about it is that we rarely recognise it for what it is. Magic, you see, is not about witches or wizards, or bangs and explosions. What it is – what it really is – is what a person can achieve if they only believe, and what a person can survive if they are loved enough.

Willy Wonka had captured, in the creation of his chocolate factory, the first kind of magic. And through this sort of magic he had discovered a most wonderful thing: a child, a good, loving child who would care for his factory when he was gone. To Willy Wonka, the future was rosy.

But sometimes things happen that we do not expect, and it was at this point that Willy Wonka discovered the second kind of magic, and surmounted the insurmountable armed with a single weapon: the love of a child.

This, my friends, is magic.

Chapter One

Ah, the Chocolate River did look fine today. Not too much froth, but just enough to make the chocolate nice and light when it hardened...

And the candy bushes! Weren't they coming along fine? They'd need a slight trim soon, though, couldn't have them getting out of hand...

Mr Wonka sighed with satisfaction as he gazed out across the Chocolate Room, his sugar-cane held primly before him. Oh, how he loved his chocolate factory!

Charlie loved it as well, Mr Wonka thought quietly, as figures began to stir inside the little house on the other side of the river. A smile twitched at his lips for a moment and had anyone been close enough they would have seen a tiny spark alight in his eyes.

"Oh, the cleverness of me." He murmured, before the smile exploded into a huge grin. He suddenly let out a huge laugh, and set off down to the path to the house at a speedy trot. As he crossed the river he bent down and picked a piece of swudge, sniffed it and nodded in apparent satisfaction.

As he reached the little house by the river he slowed, and rapped smartly on the door with his red and white-topped cane. The door was opened almost immediately and Mr Wonka looked down into a pair of wide, excited brown eyes.

"Hiya Charlie." He grinned, albeit slightly uneasily. Whilst he adored Charlie, he still found that he was more comfortable with his own company than anyone else's. But perhaps he can be forgiven for this; it takes longer than two short months to change the habits of almost two decades.

"Mr Wonka!" Charlie exclaimed, returning the smile. Mr Wonka studied the boy for a moment; he was certainly looking healthier, his cheeks fuller and his eyes brighter, since having come to live in the factory. Once more, he congratulated himself on his own genius. As we can tell, Willy Wonka possessed a certain streak of arrogance, and it was on full-blast today. But, as Charlie was soon to learn, it was not without cause.

"Hey, Charlie! Would you believe it, I was up in the Inventing Room last night and just like that - " he snapped his fingers "it came to me!" He stepped into the Bucket's house, removing his top hat as he did so.

"What did, Mr Wonka?" Charlie asked, just as Mr Wonka had wanted him to. The chocolatier smiled a mysterious smile, and he tapped the side of his nose with a purple latex-clad finger.

"Ah... wouldn't you like to know." He said, but Charlie gave him his best wide-eyed look and he crumpled. "Aww, you're no fun, y'know that?" Mr Wonka shook his head. "Anyway... y'know the chewing-gum meal that turned all the Oompa-Loompas into blueberries?" Charlie nodded, but felt he had to add something.

"And Violet Beuregarde as well." Mr Wonka gave him a blank look.

"Who?" He asked, sounding genuinely perplexed. Charlie sighed.

"She was the girl who was always..." He shook his head. "Never mind. Anyway, the chewing-gum meal...?" Everyone in the house, even the old grandparents, looked up. Mr Wonka continued to smile mysteriously, clearly relishing the hold he had on his audience.

"Ah... well, you see, the thing is..." He trailed off, looking uncertain. "What were we talking about, again?" Charlie, by now well-used to Mr Wonka's absent-mindedness, sighed. It wasn't that Mr Wonka was particularly forgetful; just that he had so many thoughts rushing around inside his head that he sometimes lost track of them all.

"The chewing-gum meal?" Charlie prompted once more. Mr Wonka's face lit up, and Charlie knew that something incredible was coming.

"Ah, yes! Well, y'know how all the Oompa-Loompas who tried it turned, uh..."

"Blue?" Offered Grandpa George, slightly meanly. Mr Wonka ignored him.

"Yes, well..." He turned towards the open door and whistled through his teeth. Almost at once an Oompa Loompa came bounding through the door. Mr Wonka surveyed the little man proudly.

"Well, he isn't blue, is he?" He said. Charlie grinned. Mr Wonka was right – the Oompa Loompa was notably lacking in blueness.

"How did you do it?" He asked. Mr Wonka's smile slipped, just slightly.

"Ah, nowthat's the thing... I'm not entirely sure..." Grandpa George snorted; he had never quite forgiven Mr Wonka for his initial refusal in allowing Charlie to bring his family into the factory.

"And he calls himself a genius..." He muttered, but once again Mr Wonka deigned to ignore him, and when he glanced back down at Charlie the grin was once more in place.

"Hey, but me and Charlie can find out today! How about that, Charlie?" But the boy looked down at his feet and shrugged sadly.

"I can't, Mr Wonka. I've got school today." It was obvious from his tone that he regretted this fact very much, and Grandpa Joe, noticing this, stepped in quickly.

"Cheer up. I'm sure what you learn at school will stand you in good stead when you inherit the factory!" He said bracingly as they sat down at the table. "Isn't that right, Mr Wonka?"

"Eh?" Mr Wonka looked rather surprised at being spoken to and Charlie suspected he had just been having one of his flashbacks. Grandpa Joe frowned slightly.

"Well, surely it isn't the Oompa Loompas who keep the accounts for the factory?" Mr Wonka gave him an incredulous look.

"You think I bother with things as boring and as money and math?" He asked, giggling slightly. "No way!"

Quite surprisingly, it was Grandpa George who spoke out in support of Mr Wonka's words.

"Hear hear." He said gruffly, and seven pairs of astounded eyes lookedround at him. Even Grandma Georgina looked shocked – though she probably thought they were talking about the price of butter.

"I beg your pardon, Pops?" Mr Bucket asked, his morning newspaper forgotten. Grandpa George harrumphed slightly at the unexpected attention before speaking.

"Well," He said, not looking up, "who would bother about money in a place like this? It's hardly as if there's any risk of the factory going bankrupt, is there?" Then, rather grudgingly, he said: "Everyone likes Wonka chocolate." He then fell silent, the grumpy look on his face only matched in intensity by the smug grin on Mr Wonka's.

But it was shy Mr Bucket who had the last word.

"Well, Charlie has to have his education."

And that was the end of that!

888

As we can see, life in the chocolate factory was fine, with breakfast talk being nothing more serious than the latest advancements in 'chewing-gum technology', as Grandma Josephine had dubbed it, and the most serious disagreement being over the silly matter of schooling.

But change had a habit of making itself known at the most awkward of times, and so it did in this case. But let us leave them be for a little while longer; if we do not warn them of what the future holds then their wonderland will remain bright, if only for a few more weeks. Let them be happy awhile...

888

A/N: I was very brave and used the term 'math' rather than 'maths'. Gotta be true to the character, eh? Anyway, please tell me what you think!