The next day, Professor Nikalou holds him and two other students back after class. The first one is finished with her in ten minutes. Dermot is up next. He walks in, looking around at the array of...things. There's a lot of things. Potted plants, puzzle pieces, pearls...

The Professor pulls one student aside and stares at them intently, to the point they start to squirm under the intensity of her gaze. 

"Uh, Professor?" They eventually ask, and Kassandra tilts her head. 

"Yep, not getting anything. You're a tricky one!" She declares, and then directs them to one of the puzzles. 

She beckons Dermot over next. 

"Hey. Uh, you're supposed to assign us our Discipline, right? And specialty, too."

She laughs. "I don't assign anything, Mr Quinn, you have to show me what it is."

"Yeah, that's- what I meant. Do we all have to solve puzzles?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"...no?"

Dermot looks around the room for anything- sport-y he could try.

Kassandra squeezes his shoulder. "It's not life or death. Look around, see what feels natural. You've got a hint of something in you, I'm curious to see what you pick." 

With that she grabs the last student, barely looking at them before directing them to some kind of stacking game.

Okay. He tries to go for what feels natural. There's a kind of hoop thing with a ball next to it; he starts lazily tossing the ball through the hoop, collecting it each time manually.

The professor leaves him alone for a while, but eventually catches the ball before he can. “Why did you pick this one?”

"It seemed more my speed. I'm not any good at puzzles or tricks or bunnies or whatever."

“Yes, perhaps. But you aren’t using any magic to manipulate it. You’re just playing basketball.”

"Are you sure? I thought it just happened if I picked the right thing."

“You picked something you know how to do already. I don’t think you use magic to play basketball. Unless the rules have changed recently.”

Kassandra makes a point of standing between Dermot and the hoop. “What is something that you once found hard, but have found easier? What is soothing, where once was frightening? Or vice versa.”

-he makes a beeline for the paperclips. There's probably some thing Physical kids are supposed to be able to do with this that's way cooler than anything he can do, but...Dermot pauses, turns around, and finds some paper on one of the desks between a Newton's cradle and the creepy taxidermy animals. He rips the paper in several spots, just a little, and places the paper clips on the tears.

"Figured this one out last week."

He holds his hands out, fingers splayed and palms down, trying to focus. Nothing happens for several minutes.

Kassandra watches with some interest, and a little bit of concern. She’d thought maybe he was so late a bloomer that he was too timid to use his magic. She’s seeing she might’ve been wrong with that assessment. 

The tears in the paper knit together. He smiles excitedly.

A simple spell, one that even someone with no magic can do, and definitely no evidence of the weeks of study he’s had here.

But Kassandra is not unkind, so she claps his shoulder. “Well done! You think Healing may be your discipline? How does that feel?”

"It seems cool. I guess it's nice to be able to heal people, right? So far it mostly seems to work on me, though."

“Everyone starts somewhere, kiddo! We’ll figure it out.”

Another hearty clap to his shoulder. 

So they can continue testing until Dermot manages to cut himself trying to operate one of the sharper puzzles and instantly heals himself, with a speed which is uncommon for a magician of his mediocre talents.

Now that...that’s something. Kassandra grabs him, and inspects the freshly-healed wound. “Now how did you do that?”

"I don't know, I just wanted it. Thought about how it should look and not how it was."

There is...a lot to unpack in that small sentence, but Kassandra lets it go. For now. In the meantime- 

“Well, that makes it pretty certain to me! Healer, with a focus on self-regeneration for now. Maybe as you learn more you’ll be able to stretch out that to heal others.”

"That would be nice! Thanks. So what do I do now that we know?"