Since birth, Marina’s life has been marked by twos. Two parents – Horacio Alacrán and Paloma Alcázar, separated with an undertone of disdain. Two kids, at least that Rina had to deal with – she and her brother Ros. Two cities – Toledo, Cádiz. And two lives – pure-blooded destitution and Muggle joy.

Marina split her time between Cádiz and Toledo nearly equally, although her feelings about each city were far from similar. She far preferred her family life in Toledo; her mamá actually cared for her and raised her as best she could. In Toledo, she was educated (as much as Paloma could do at home), but the best part was that she got to spend time getting to know the patrons at the old hotel her mamá worked at. She got to know more than just the Muggle patrons—in a building that old, there were a few patrons with arrows sticking out of their chests or really old clothing, and most of them had the ability to walk through walls. Rina’s mamá simply praised her imagination when she brought it up.

In Cádiz, Rina was largely left to fend for herself. Horacio worked at the magical port to inspect imported goods, and she was usually left at his crumbly, sometimes mouldy flat alone. This didn’t largely bother her; she would spend time outside with her friends, becoming rather impressive at futbol and also enjoying time on her bicycle and at the beach. It only became problematic when her father came home and brought something—or someone—with him. On days like this, he often acted as if he wished to shoo her out of the house, but he couldn’t, since there would be legal problems.

She was glad her mamá hadn’t married Horacio.

Nevertheless, Rina remained firmly aware of the magical world. She knew of her father’s life, of how he had attended Beauxbâtons, and, of course, how he had once been primed to inherit quite a bit of magical money. And how it was all her fault he hadn’t. She had learned to shrug off his displeasure, and she ended up associating the magical world with negativity. For years, as far as she was aware, she had exuded no magical ability, something she was very grateful for. All she wanted was to keep her normal, mundane life with her normal, completely mundane mother.

However, she had a bit more interaction with the magical world than she really knew. Sometimes, most usually when at her mamá’s hotel in Toledo, she caught glimpses of partially-translucent individuals in very old clothing. They spoke, too, although most often in older accents. Some of their words were pronounced very oddly. More often than not, they disappeared about as soon as she had seen them. Once, she told her mamá about the apparitions, but her mamá informed her she had an ‘overactive imagination’. Although sceptical, Rina assumed this to be true enough.

Given that she had a largely Muggle upbringing, most of her hobbies were Muggle in nature. After befriending some local youths in Cádiz in a cycling competition, Rina began to cycle everywhere in both Toledo and Cádiz. She gained a fair amount of independence from her father’s lack of acknowledgement of her, meaning she and her friends would take trains around Andalucía… although Rina still did keep in contact with her mamá via text message, just to make sure she knew she was safe. Rina got into music, too, starting a band with some of her friends in Cádiz. They were too young to properly understand the point of it, but Rina has sworn up and down that when she comes home from school in summer, she’ll keep playing with Inigo, Carla and Miguel. The only downside is she’ll have to bring an acoustic guitar to Beauxbâtons…

When she was ten and staying in Cádiz with her father for a week in December, all the normalcy of Rina’s life came crashing to a halt. Her father had been out for who knew how long, and Rina had tasked herself with cooking torrijas. While scrambling for some more butter, her arm knocked an oily napkin onto the stove. Panicking, she slammed her hands onto the napkin, stove and pan; to her horrified surprise, she did not burn her hands, and the flames extinguished. Her hands did become very sticky, and her torrijas very smushed. Nonetheless, she knew magic was the only explanation for such an ordeal, and she felt her heart sink even as she licked butter from her fingers.

words

by Elena Clark

by haven bohannon

by Damien dragonclaw

by yours truly