#slavic cryptid

Always has been.

His fingers are a little too long. His teeth a little too sharp. His skin moss-pale even in the height of Summer. On Kupala, during the evening festival his skin looks grey even in the light of the bonfire.

His bloodline carries a curse — his grandmother was a Leshy bride. Polish forrest magic in human skin.

The other Slytherins call him “rootrot.”

But James Potter sees him in the library one day, covered in dirt from some forbidden herbology ritual, and he doesn’t flinch.

“You smell like tree bark,” James says. “It’s kind of hot.”

Regulus: “You’re disgusting.”