Harry reported it at the start of the second week's Tuesday session, with the quality of someone who had been thinking about how to present something and had decided the direct version was most useful.
'Moody pulled me aside after DADA,' he said. 'Gave me a hint.'
The group, in various stages of warming up the footwork drills, went still in the way groups went still when information arrived that required processing.
'What kind of hint,' Ron said.
'He said to think about what I'm good at. What I can do that the other champions can't.' Harry paused. 'He was pointing at flying. Pretty clearly.'
Ron thought about this. About Crouch Junior sitting across a DADA classroom for six weeks, assessing Harry Potter with the specific attention of someone whose entire year depended on delivering Harry Potter to a graveyard in June. The hint was genuine in the sense that flying would work — Harry on a broomstick against a dragon was survivable, had been survivable in the original timeline, and Crouch Junior knew this. The hint was also designed to put Harry in the most visible, most dramatic, most audience-pleasing position possible for a champion being guided toward a specific end.
He said none of this.
'What do you think?' he asked.
Harry looked at him with the expression he had when he was being asked to say what he actually thought rather than what he thought he was supposed to think. 'I think flying against a dragon is insane,' he said. 'Even for me. You'd be visible from the moment you mounted the broom. The dragon's tracking you before you've done anything. You've given up the only real advantage you have, which is that it doesn't know where you are.'
'Yes,' Ron said.
'The plan we have is better.'
'Yes.'
Harry nodded once. 'I told him I'd think about it.'
'Good,' Ron said. 'Think about it. Then do what we're doing.' He looked at the group. 'The advice wasn't wrong, exactly. Flying would work. It's just not the best available option when you have a better one.' He paused. 'File it. If the stealth approach fails completely on the day — which it won't, but if it does — the broom is the backup. Not the plan.'
Harry nodded. Something in his bearing settled in the way it settled when a decision had been made and he was glad to have it made.
'Right,' Hermione said, from the floor where she had been stretching. 'Can we get back to the scent masking, because mine is still dropping when I move and I want to fix that before Thursday?'
They got back to the scent masking.