The receptionist at the front desk gave Dumbledore directions.
"Professor, why did you bring me to a hospital?"
Iain's sixth sense had already told him everything, but his super-brain still seemed unwilling to fully process the information.
"No need to be nervous. Just a routine examination."
Dumbledore's footsteps were soft against the hospital corridor floor. The corridor was long, with dark green walls and moving oil paintings hanging on either side.
Iain's attention was quickly stolen by them. In one painting, a wizard was wrapping his own broken leg in bandages, the bandages going round and round forever without ever running out. In another, a ghostly doctor crawled into a patient's nostril and then emerged from his ear.
"But I'm not ill. Especially not in the head."
Iain said it with wary emphasis.
At that moment, Dumbledore stopped outside a door. The brass plaque read:
Maylene Stello - Specialist in Spell Damage, Brain Injuries, and Potion-Related Trauma
"You think there's something wrong with my brain?"
Iain's mouth was not crooked, his eyes were not slanted, and the singing hat on his head was quickly grabbed and stuffed into his trousers.
His whole expression was one of shocked betrayal.
"I never said there was anything wrong with you. I simply feel that, for safety's sake, a comprehensive examination would be wise."
Dumbledore gently tried to calm the young wizard.
The young wizard immediately bristled.
"But I'm not sick! When I was little, Mrs. Hawke took me to more than a dozen doctors! Every single one of them said I was perfectly normal."
"One of them even said he wanted to kiss my brain. I'm not bragging. That actually happened."
Iain argued his case with righteous force, his tone overflowing with indignation.
He felt deeply offended.
Dumbledore's brows twitched faintly. He truly wanted to ask, Then did it never occur to you why Mrs. Hawke took you to more than a dozen doctors in the first place?
But he did not ask.
Because by now, through recent experience, the old headmaster had come to understand that asking would be pointless. He had developed a very clear picture of the young wizard's personality.
This was the sort of child who might question the entire world and doubt everyone around him, yet would never once turn that suspicion inward.
A wizard too pure for self-doubt.
"More than a dozen doctors?"
Dumbledore repeated it, his voice carrying neither disbelief nor surprise.
"Yes. More than a dozen."
Iain casually knocked on the door.
"When you're a little ahead, you're a genius. When you're too far ahead, no one understands you. You're Dumbledore, the greatest wizarding genius there is. If even you can't understand me, then..."
He said that, paused for one second, and then, once again, had another revelation.
"Hiss. I see now. So I've even surpassed you already. It seems my super-brain is evolving faster than I thought."
Exactly as Dumbledore had judged, Iain's expression moved from righteous fury to thoughtful reflection, and then finally settled into the most basic and sincere form of of course it's me.
"..."
Dumbledore knocked on the door several times in quick succession.
"I am only doing this out of caution. Your magic only recently awakened, and that necromancy incident, you yourself said that it was a form of Dark Magic you dislike."
"We both know that Dark Magic can have a certain... effect on a wizard's mind and brain. A proper examination will confirm that your heart remains pure and your mind remains whole."
"That is not a bad thing, is it?"
The old man's voice was as gentle as if he were coaxing medicine into a cat that refused to swallow it. He truly did possess immensely rich experience in educating the young.
The young wizard was instantly caught.
"You're right. You should have become a Dementor in Azkaban. The way you pinpointed my deepest fear was terrifying."
Iain immediately accepted reality.
His tone held the defeated air of someone who had been cornered by perfect reasoning.
Dumbledore did not deny it.
The door opened by itself, and he stepped aside to let Iain enter.
"Good afternoon, young man. And good afternoon, Headmaster Dumbledore."
Inside the office, Healer Maylene Stello was a witch with greying hair. She had a round face and wore very thick spectacles, the lenses making her eyes behind them appear unusually large and bright, like two grapes polished until they shone.
"Have a seat, child."
Healer Stello pointed to the chair in the center of the room. It was no ordinary chair. Metal plates were set into the armrests, and several copper tubes ran from the back into a contraption that looked very much like an old-fashioned wireless radio.
"All right."
Like a patient at the dentist, and being a veterinarian himself, Iain knew that patients ought to cooperate with doctors. So he sat down directly on the strange apparatus.
The moment the young wizard's backside touched the seat, the metal plates lit up.
They gave off a soft glow like the bioluminescence of creatures from the deep sea.
"No need to be nervous. Just a few amusing little tests."
Healer Stello motioned for Dumbledore to sit to one side. She already knew what she was doing, and now stood up.
"Nervous? I've never known what nervousness is."
Iain stared fixedly at Healer Stello and talked big, just as he noticed her picking up an enormous hammer.
It was about the size of a basketball.
"..."
Iain swallowed, but said nothing. He knew that once a persona had been established, he absolutely could not allow it to collapse.
Fortunately, the doctor's hammer looked far more frightening than it truly was. When it knocked against his head, it produced sound but no pain.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A crisp sound, like tapping on a ripe watermelon.
Healer Stello tilted her head and listened for a while, then knocked a few more times in a different place.
"So my head sounds like a good head, doesn't it?"
Iain relaxed slightly, then, seeing the surprise on her face, curiously asked the question.
"..."
Healer Stello did not answer.
"A very fine ratio."
It was Dumbledore, seated some distance away, who provided the emotional encouragement. Meanwhile, after setting down the hammer, Healer Stello took up a magnifying glass from the desk.
This magnifying glass was rather different from an ordinary one.
Its lens was not glass, but some transparent crystal-like substance. The frame was silver, the rim engraved with tiny runes.
"Think of something pleasant."
Healer Stello held the lens just before Iain's forehead, about two inches from his skin, and peered through it.
"All right."
Iain tried his best to recall happy memories. Things like the time he had used a homemade firecracker to blow up a cesspit. The filth flying everywhere. The very first time he discovered he had "superpowers."
Out of more than a dozen children there, only Iain had emerged spotless.
He had truly been very happy.
"Hm?"
Healer Stello looked startled.
Beneath the lens, Iain's skull became transparent, clearer than an X-ray. She could even make out the smallest blood vessels in his brain.
"Doctor, could you perhaps take a picture for me to see? I've always wanted to know whether my brain has especially sexy folds."
Iain seized the opportunity to make his request.
"Hiss..."
Even the ordinarily warm and kindly Healer Stello did not respond.
Her brows had drawn tightly together.
It was as if her many years of medical practice had just encountered a challenge of unprecedented scale.