Dumbledore's hand twitched again.
Dead memories were launching a full assault on his reason.
Fortunately, the old man was not what he once had been. Experience had taught him better, and he had long since hidden away his sharpest edges. This time, he did not set another wardrobe on fire to warn a young wizard not to be quite so wildly unhinged.
"Very good. It seems you may have quite a respectable gift for alchemy."
Dumbledore had to take a deep breath before speaking. These days, he greatly preferred the educational method of encouragement and calm reassurance.
"Mhm."
Iain accepted the praise happily and nodded like an enthusiastic little woodpecker.
"Take me to see the rare minerals you buried."
Dumbledore did not answer whether alchemy could refine ores. Instead, with a perfectly expressionless face, he issued an instruction to the young wizard.
Very soon, he was profoundly grateful for his own caution.
In the back yard, beside the plane tree, Iain directed Dumbledore to use magic to dig a very, very deep pit.
Buried within it were more than a dozen lead-lined cases. Once brought back into the open air, they revealed row upon row of extraordinarily distinctive mineral blocks packed neatly inside.
"This is uranium ore."
Dumbledore had lived for more than a hundred years.
He was a master of alchemy, a collaborator of Nicolas Flamel, and one of the very few wizards in the world who genuinely understood the operating principles of the Philosopher's Stone.
Of course he recognized what kind of mineral sat inside those cases, and of course he knew what it could be used for.
So although his expression remained calm, the hand holding the Elder Wand shook as though afflicted by Parkinson's.
"Where did you get these?"
Dumbledore was doing his absolute best to control his tone. When those pale blue eyes turned toward Iain, they were full of suspicion.
"There used to be an old caretaker at the orphanage called Old Ivan. He was the one last night with all the vodka bottles hanging around his neck when he got resurrected."
"He was a Soviet scientist. According to him, his teacher was Andrei Sakharov. Between political trouble and total disillusionment, he ran off to England and ended up becoming a groundskeeper."
"Old Ivan was brilliant from the time he was little, so naturally he also had the discerning eye to recognize that I was brilliant too. Whenever he had spare time, he'd teach me whatever knowledge he still remembered."
"These things were part of a collection he'd got from somewhere. Later he left them to me, and told me that if the time ever came, I'd be able to use them."
Iain gave an honest accounting of his experience.
And the more Dumbledore listened, the more horrified he became.
What exactly did if the time ever came, you'd be able to use them mean?
"You intended to turn these into weapons for self-defense too?"
Dumbledore did not know whom exactly Iain expected to defend himself against with this sort of material.
Demons from his dreams, perhaps?
Ah.
That, at least, sounded somewhat more reasonable.
The Headmaster of Hogwarts slowly came to understand everything.
"What normal person would think about building a nuclear bomb?"
Iain looked up at Dumbledore with an odd expression. There was a clear Professor, are you feeling all right? lurking in his eyes. He was beginning to suspect Dumbledore's mind was not entirely sound, though out of respect he refrained from suggesting a psychiatric evaluation.
"..."
Hearing that, Dumbledore looked at the cases of ore and fell silent for a while.
An exiled scientist.
Uranium ore.
Deep in his heart, he was beginning to feel that this orphanage had something profoundly cursed about it.
"Then what did you want to do with it?"
Dumbledore knew he absolutely had to get an answer.
And Iain did not hide it.
"I just wanted to build a small reactor. I've looked at the orphanage electricity bills for years. It's at least a thousand pounds a month, and in winter it's especially awful. Every time Mrs. Hawke gets the bill, she sighs for days."
"So if we could generate our own power, then the money we save could buy the children all sorts of things."
Iain glanced toward the lit third-floor window of the orphanage.
His tone was light, full of bright expectation.
"..."
Dumbledore could hear the warmth and sense of responsibility in Iain's words.
That did not stop him from silently deciding that he absolutely needed to find a healer to examine the boy's head.
Who in the world thought I know, I'll build a reactor in the yard as a way to save on the electric bill?
Truthfully, Dumbledore rather wished Iain would simply tell lies the way Tom once had.
Just then,
"Professor Dumbledore, since you're the headmaster of a magical school, could you use magic to turn this pile of ore directly into a reactor?"
"No, wait. I'm an idiot. If I've got magic, why would I need the ore? There must be some kind of spell that can just turn an ordinary rock into uranium pure enough to use!"
Iain was still chattering away about reducing the orphanage's cost of living.
Dumbledore felt a little faint.
...
By the next morning, the rain had finally stopped.
The London sky revealed a faint patch of blue, the clouds thin enough for sunlight to leak through in scattered shafts, shining onto the soaked streets and breaking into splinters of gold.
Iain stood at the front entrance of the orphanage.
A whole line of people stood before him.
Mrs. Hawke stood at the very front.
She had changed into a clean dark-blue coat, and her hair had been neatly brushed. Her eyes were a little red, though the corners of her mouth were lifted in a smile.
"Study hard."
She rubbed at her reddened eyes and offered him her final instruction.
"Mhm!!"
Iain's face was flushed red, bright with a rather strange excitement. Quite what answer Dumbledore had given him the night before, no one could say.
What mattered was that his head was now full of nothing but learning magic.
"Iain, Iain, when you come back, bring me a magical rabbit!"
"I'll take good care of your pets, Big Brother Iain. Can you bring me something tasty when you return?"
"Huh? Aren't magical rabbits tasty?"
...
Iain said goodbye to almost every child individually.
He even slipped out a few little envelopes of money, telling his brothers and sisters that whenever they missed him, they ought to buy themselves some sweets.
Then, under the watchful eyes of Mrs. Hawke and the others, he walked toward Dumbledore, who was waiting some distance away.
Partings were always sad.
Iain dragged his suitcase one step at a time and decided that when he returned after mastering magic, that would be the day his orphanage began its grand rise to glory.
"Are you ready?"
Dumbledore stood quietly watching the scene.
In the morning light, his robes had become a shifting blend of dark purple and blue. Fawkes rested on his shoulder with his head tucked beneath a wing, fast asleep.
"Professor, thank you."
Iain was still waving to the children.
"Oh? And what are you thanking me for?"
Dumbledore's brow rose slightly.
"For not wiping their memories."
Iain's voice was very soft.
"What happened last night... you could have used magic, couldn't you? Made everyone forget it happened. But you didn't."
It had caught Iain off guard. He knew the Ministry had rules. Whenever Muggles encountered magic, Obliviators were usually sent to pay their brains a little visit.
"So that's it. It was nothing, really."
Dumbledore lowered his eyes to the boy, those pale blue eyes especially clear in the morning light.
"Some stories deserve to be remembered."
Dumbledore smiled faintly, and there was a deeper meaning in his tone.
Then he placed a hand on Iain's shoulder.
"Are you ready? We're leaving at once. It may feel a little unpleasant, but it's also rather interesting. I imagine it will be something you'll find very hard to forget in the future."
The moment Dumbledore's words ended, he and Iain vanished into a twisting distortion of space.
Apparition.
And the unforgettable part was that this was Iain's very first Apparition.
"Waaah!"
The world spun.
His vision blurred.
By the time Iain could see again, he was crouched on the ground clutching his stomach, taking a very long time to avoid being sick.
And when he finally looked up, face tinged green,
"Iain, welcome to Godric's Hollow. This is my home, and for a while to come, it will also be the place where you learn to control your own power."
Dumbledore stood not far away in front of a small cottage. It felt as though he had not returned here in a very long time. As he spoke, he reached out and gently touched a child's doodle on the wall.
It looked like the work of some small child, abstract enough to suggest a very early disciple of Picasso.
But it was obvious Dumbledore felt deeply about it.
"Was that one of your masterpieces from childhood, Professor? You must have nearly cried yourself silly over your own artistic genius."
By now, Iain had mostly recovered, the color returning to his face. He leaned closer for a better look and then noticed that Dumbledore was, in fact, crying.
"I'm sorry you had to see such an unbecoming sight."
Dumbledore was already mastering his emotions again. Even with reddened eyes, he still remembered to apologize to Iain.
"It's all right, it's all right. These work better than handkerchiefs. Here."
The kind-hearted little wizard dug into his pocket and handed the future Headmaster a free sanitary pad.
Menstrual health campaigns were fairly common in Britain, so from time to time, as long as Iain dressed in an especially harmless, neat little way, he could end up bringing extras home alongside Catherine and Keisha.
"????"
Dumbledore accepted it on reflex.
But the moment it touched his hand, he knew something was not right.
Truth be told, Iain might actually qualify as some sort of miracle physician.
Only moments ago Dumbledore had been lost in grief.
At this exact instant, however, his melancholy was very thoroughly cured.