Alejandros is dark-haired, dark-eyed, and not quite tall enough. The last point is subjective, but he’s hovering around only average height for a boy his age and the Espinosas are all tall. He didn’t get those genes, unfortunately. He’s not quite strong enough, either, which he knows because his father mentions it, sometimes. He hasn’t really grown into himself in any sense of the phrase, and the perfect posture and carefully neutral expressions of a pure-blood heir all look awkward on him. Either he’s too stiff or too aware he’s being expressive, because as much as he’s tried to stop, he’s the kind of person who shows everything in the flicker of his eyes, in the twist of his mouth.

At least he’s figured out how to meet his family’s expectations in his choice of dress, which is to say he’s visually a bit boring: muted colors, neatly folded collars, tamed curls. But boring might be his own words for it, as an artist privately invested in color theory; maybe just rich fits a bit better, which his family is. His medium-toned skin is dotted with freckles if you look really closely, and if you look closer still, you might notice the bump of the little sea star charm he keeps strung on a necklace under his shirt.

A sensitive kid turned one pretending not to be, Alejandros, or Ros for short, tries to be what his family wants: a good son, a cutthroat wizard. Secretly, he would rather be an artist, and he knows for a fact he doesn’t have the barbs they want him to. But he can fake it, right? Eventually he’ll be like them and everything will be better.

And for now? He’s not really a natural fighter or a natural actor. He’s pretty anxious, fidgety when he thinks no one is looking, but he really does want to get along with kids his age. He loves the city’s old art and the sea and his mamá. For everything he’s trying to shape himself into, he thinks his favorite person in the whole world might just be his half-sister, and Rina is fearless. That could never be him, though.

Alejandros’ conception was the kind of expected disaster the pure-blooded wizarding world had experience covering up. Alba Flores ran from an arranged marriage with Martín Espinosa, but at least she did it with another pure-blood, and when she inevitably ran back because Horacio Alacrán was not the kind of man forever was likely to work out with, she was lucky enough to be swept back into high society’s fold. She accepted her place as Señora Espinosa, and Ros was gifted with two distant fathers.

His childhood was fine. The big family house in Marbella was old and multigenerational, under his grandparents primarily and his father secondarily. The household spoke Spanish with the occasional French sprinkled in from their time at Beauxbâtons, and tutors ensured he would know the language well enough by the time he was eleven, as well as some English for all the exchanges with international wizarding schools. While there was enough wealth to buy anything, the family philosophy was too strict to give the children whatever they wanted. What Ros would work out, eventually, was that there were certain things he was supposed to want, and whether or not he actually did, he’d make them all much happier with him if he pretended to. The exception was his mamá, who turned affectionate whenever it was just the two of them and bought him paints when she saw his passion in the doodles tucked in the corners of his assignments.

Mostly he was raised as an Espinosa, like the affair didn't exist, but his mamá retained enough of a relationship with Horacio for Ros to see him, sometimes, and wonder whether he was supposed to call him padre. At least being around him meant being around his sister, Rina, who was probably the most wonderful, terrifying person he’d ever met. She stressed him out even more than he stressed himself out, but honestly? He wished he could be more like her, able to shrug off what people thought and choose what he wanted.

Other times he wished he could be more like his other little sister, because Teresa Espinosa’s only fault was that she wasn’t a metamorphmagus. Two years younger and five parts tougher than him, Ros mostly tried to avoid standing right next to her for comparison. He had a younger brother, too, but Emilio was an annoying toddler with sticky hands and irritatingly loud cries whenever he didn’t get what he wanted, at least according to Ros, and how was an eleven-year-old supposed to get along with a four-year-old, anyway? To his family's luck, Emilio turned all ten of his toes bright green without the first month of his life.

Ros’ first instance of magic, other than the shape-shifting, came right before he fell asleep when he was seven, nearly eight. Perhaps inspired by an overactive imagination as he started to drift off, he briefly covered the whole bedroom in wildflowers, twisting shapes and bright colors digging their roots into every plain corner. They only lasted long enough for him to call in his parents and little sister to see, and he cried when they vanished, but his mamá conjured her own handful of wildflowers for him to keep in a vase at his bedside until they wilted.