North Star Shining: American Wizards Book 2

Chapter 1. A SPECIAL DAY INDEED

Elizabeth Cord stood outside the sanctuary in her ivory lace wedding dress. Her son, Scott, was holding her bouquet of pink roses. "Are you nervous, mom?"

"Petrified."

"Mom! You guys are together all the time now! This just makes it..."

"Permanent." She smiled at him. "I was just never the bride before. I'll be okay."

It was time. Scott's best friend,Tom, came out of a door at the end of the hall, the groom following just behind him, wearing dark blue satin dress robes with a cummerbund and an ice blue pleated shirt. As he strode toward her, robes billowing behind him, Elizabeth caught her breath and then gasped. Tears came to her eyes. "Mom? What is it?" Scott looked up at her anxiously.

The groom reached them and looked at Elizabeth's teary eyes. "Liz? What's wrong?" He took her hand.

"Nothing...oh my god, you...are...just...gorgeous!" She whispered.

"I clean up well, then? And you look like an angel. Hey, don't cry, you'll wreck your makeup. C'mon, Muggle girl, let's jump that broom." Scott handed her the flowers and the two boys led them down the aisle to their handfasting.

............

Elizabeth was walking the aisle with a tall, blond Wizard named Jason Studebaker. Elizabeth was a Muggle. Muggle had become, over time, the universally accepted term used to describe a non-magical person. That this Muggle was marrying a Pure-blooded Wizard was also acceptable because it was universally accepted that if not for intermarriage with Muggles, wizards and witches would have died out long ago, helped along by various witch hunts in earlier centuries. Some magical people, however, continued to be elitists and looked upon these intermarriages quite unfavorably, even believing that merely associating with "filthy Muggles" was disgusting.

Elizabeth had met Jason on a train platform, introduced by her young son, Scott, and his best friend Thomas Studebaker. The two boys were returning home from boarding school for the Christmas holidays. Both boys were wizards.

Jason owned a small ranch in Colorado called North Star. The property had been in the family for decades and he hoped to pass it to his son in turn. He had a nice-guy look with his blond hair, deep blue eyes, and wide smile. His muscular build spoke of a man who chose to do some labor manually rather than magically. A wizarding lawyer by training, he had worked and partied his way through his twenties but had been, he felt, rather hustled into a proper marriage to a proper witch in his early thirties. The proper witch had borne Thomas and then left him. After that, he raised his son and refused to become involved with women. Oh, they had had their purpose, of course.

While there was such a thing as children of Muggles being born with magical ability, this was not the case with Scott Cord. His father had been a wizard, half-blood, young, and powerful. He was a teacher, a Potions Master, at a prestigious school of witchcraft and wizardry in Scotland. Elizabeth taught there, too. Her employment was an experiment. The Headmaster, at the time, believed that the best individual to teach a course in Muggle Studies to young wizards was a Muggle.

She had been curious about, and then attracted to, the mysterious and complicated Potions Master, Professor Severus Snape. The two had danced around each other for some time, but finally began what became a close relationship inside a torrid affair. A group of Dark Wizards heard about their affair and accused Elizabeth of stealing magic. She was, to them, a filthy Muggle, and they attempted to murder her right on the school grounds. The Professor had sent her away for her own safety. She never saw him again.

Her pregnancy was a complete surprise. It should not have happened, but Scott Severus Cord, now a teenager, inherited his father's coloring, his father's shape, and his father's magical ability. Through an intermediary, she had told the Professor about the child. He began to quietly transfer money to her at regular intervals. She was still in love with him, and this had given her hope that he would send for them after winning a conflict surrounding the return of a horrible, evil wizard called the Dark Lord. They'd won it once before, they'd do it again.

The war was won, but only after the Professor was murdered, by the Dark Lord himself. Snape was hailed as a hero. She was devastated. A letter from Scotland had arrived later. To her surprise, he had left to her a sizable amount of money. Years crept by, and she never stopped loving him.

Jason and Liz had been attracted to one another at first glance, although neither could say exactly why. Their children gave them common ground, and so they kept in touch. An attraction became a desire, one that they finally gave in to, at the ranch, on a hot summer night. There had been bumps in the road, but a desire had become a love. Neither could say exactly why.