Consider the following example

class base
{
protected :
    int x = 5;
    int(base::*g);
};
class derived :public base
{
    void declare_value();
    derived();
};
void derived:: declare_value()
{
    g = &base::x;
}
derived::derived()
    :base()
{}

As per knowledge only friends and derived classes of the base class can access the protected members of the base class but in the above example I get the following error "Error C2248 'base::x': cannot access protected member declared in class " but when I add the following line

friend class derived;

declaring it as friend , I can access the members of the base class , did I do some basic mistake in the declaring the derived class ?