Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Chapters 15–21

by J.K. Rowling
In the conclusion to J.K. Rowling's wildly popular fantasy series, Harry must track down and dispose of the remaining Horcruxes and make a final stand against Voldemort.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1–7, Chapters 8–14, Chapters 15–21, Chapters 22–29, Chapter 30–Epilogue

Here are links to our lists for works in the Harry Potter universe: The Sorcerer's Stone, The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Goblet of Fire, The Order of the Phoenix, The Half-Blood Prince, The Deathly Hallows, The Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. proviso
    a stipulated condition
    Harry and Hermione felt that it was best not to stay anywhere too long, and Ron agreed, with the sole proviso that their next move took them within reach of a bacon sandwich.
  2. consternation
    sudden shock or dismay that causes confusion
    Their expressions of consternation and disappointment made Harry feel ashamed.
  3. dour
    showing a brooding ill humor
    Hermione bore up reasonably well on those nights when they managed to scavenge nothing but berries or stale biscuits, her temper perhaps a little shorter than usual and her silences rather dour.
  4. irascible
    quickly aroused to anger
    Ron, however, had always been used to three delicious meals a day, courtesy of his mother or of the Hogwarts house-elves, and hunger made him both unreasonable and irascible.
  5. litany
    a prayer consisting of a series of invocations by the priest with responses from the congregation
    As Dumbledore had told Harry that he believed Voldemort had hidden the Horcruxes in places important to him, they kept reciting, in a sort of dreary litany, those locations they knew that Voldemort had lived or visited.
  6. perverse
    deviating from what is considered moral or right or proper
    Every twelve hours or so they passed the Horcrux between them as though they were playing some perverse, slow-motion game of pass-the-parcel, where they dreaded the music stopping because the reward was twelve hours of increased fear and anxiety.
  7. guttural
    relating to or articulated in the throat
    It was a rough and unmelodious tongue, a string of rattling, guttural noises, and there seemed to be two speakers, one with a slightly lower, slower voice than the other.
  8. supercilious
    having or showing arrogant superiority
    Phineas Nigellus raised supercilious eyebrows.
  9. imbibe
    take in, also metaphorically
    “Goblin-made armor does not require cleaning, simple girl. Goblins’ silver repels mundane dirt, imbibing only that which strengthens it.”
  10. cudgel
    strike with a club that is used as a weapon
    Cudgel his brains though he might, Harry could not remember Dumbledore ever mentioning a place in which he might hide something.
  11. venerate
    regard with feelings of respect and reverence
    He venerated Snape, the first Slytherin headmaster since he himself had controlled the school, and they had to be careful not to criticize or ask impertinent questions about Snape, or Phineas Nigellus would instantly leave his painting.
  12. impacted
    wedged or packed in together
    The snow here had become impacted: It was hard and slippery where people had trodden on it all day.
  13. obelisk
    a stone pillar tapering towards a pyramidal top
    Instead of an obelisk covered in names, there was a statue of three people: a man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face, and a baby boy sitting in his mother’s arms.
  14. eddy
    a miniature whirlpool or whirlwind
    But then he heard a rustle and saw a little eddy of dislodged snow in the bush to which Hermione had pointed.
  15. sanguine
    confidently optimistic and cheerful
    Harry, who did not feel as sanguine as he had pretended when reassuring Hermione, was glad to reach the gate and the slippery pavement.
  16. mottled
    having spots or patches of color
    She closed the door behind them, her knuckles blue and mottled against the peeling paint, then turned and peered into Harry’s face.
  17. cataract
    disease that involves the clouding of the lens of the eye
    Her eyes were thick with cataracts and sunken into folds of transparent skin, and her whole face was dotted with broken veins and liver spots.
  18. fetid
    offensively malodorous
    Then she closed her eyes and several things happened at once: Harry’s scar prickled painfully; the Horcrux twitched so that the front of his sweater actually moved; the dark, fetid room dissolved momentarily.
  19. tawdry
    tastelessly showy
    The night wet and windy, two children dressed as pumpkins waddling across the square, and the shop windows covered in paper spiders, all the tawdry Muggle trappings of a world in which they did not believe....
  20. trappings
    ornaments; embellishments to or characteristic signs of
    The night wet and windy, two children dressed as pumpkins waddling across the square, and the shop windows covered in paper spiders, all the tawdry Muggle trappings of a world in which they did not believe....
  21. precocious
    characterized by exceptionally early development
    Educated at Durmstrang, a school famous even then for its unfortunate tolerance of the Dark Arts, Grindelwald showed himself quite as precociously brilliant as Dumbledore.
  22. effusion
    an unrestrained expression of emotion
    Why exactly did Aberforth Dumbledore blame Albus for his sister’s death? Was it, as “Batty” pretends, a mere effusion of grief?
  23. inadvertent
    happening by chance or unexpectedly or unintentionally
    And how did the mysterious Ariana die? Was she the inadvertent victim of some Dark rite?
  24. embodiment
    a new personification of a familiar idea
    He had trusted Dumbledore, believed him the embodiment of goodness and wisdom.
  25. doleful
    filled with or evoking sadness
    Rita’s book lay on the ground between them, so that the face of Albus Dumbledore smiled dolefully at both.
  26. exhilaration
    the feeling of lively and cheerful joy
    All the same, a little more fear leavened his exhilaration as he returned his attention to the sword reposing upon the bottom of the frozen pool.
  27. malediction
    the act of calling down a curse that invokes evil
    She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and Harry could not blame Ron for retreating several steps.
  28. abate
    become less in amount or intensity
    Harry had not expected Hermione’s anger to abate overnight, and was therefore unsurprised that she communicated mainly by dirty looks and pointed silences the next morning.
  29. buoyant
    characterized by liveliness and lightheartedness
    Hermione’s sulkiness could not mar his buoyant spirits: The sudden upswing in their fortunes, the appearance of the mysterious doe, the recovery of Gryffindor’s sword, and above all, Ron’s return, made Harry so happy that it was quite difficult to maintain a straight face.
  30. condescend
    do something that one considers to be below one's dignity
    Harry took aim at it with the wand Ron had given him the previous night, which Hermione had since condescended to examine, and had decided was made of blackthorn.
  31. intrusive
    tending to enter uninvited
    Every minor spell he had cast with it so far that day had seemed less powerful than those he had produced with his phoenix wand. The new one felt intrusively unfamiliar, like having somebody else’s hand sewn to the end of his arm.
  32. levitate
    cause to rise in the air and float
    Sitting in the entrance, he tried to make the blackthorn wand levitate small stones at his feet; but his magic still seemed clumsier and less powerful than it had done before.
  33. covert
    secret or hidden
    He threw Hermione many covert glances, plainly fearing an angry outburst, but for all the notice she took of him he might not have been there.
  34. deign
    do something that one considers to be below one's dignity
    Hermione did not deign to respond, but approached Harry.
  35. rook
    a castle-shaped chess piece that moves in a straight line
    “That’s got to be Luna’s house, who else would live in a place like that? It looks like a giant rook!”
    “It’s nothing like a bird,” said Hermione, frowning at the tower.
    “I was talking about a chess rook,” said Ron. “A castle to you.”
  36. dapper
    marked by up-to-dateness in dress and manners
    Barely ten seconds passed, then the door was flung open and there stood Xenophilius Lovegood, barefoot and wearing what appeared to be a stained nightshirt. His long white candyfloss hair was dirty and unkempt. Xenophilius had been positively dapper at Bill and Fleur’s wedding by comparison.
  37. querulous
    habitually complaining
    “What? What is it? Who are you? What do you want?” he cried in a high-pitched, querulous voice, looking first at Hermione, then at Ron, and finally at Harry, upon which his mouth fell open in a perfect, comical O.
  38. dogmatic
    characterized by assertion of unproved principles
    “I bought it,” said Xenophilius dogmatically, “two weeks ago, from a delightful young wizard who knew of my interest in the exquisite Snorkack..."
  39. precariously
    in a manner affording no ease or reassurance
    She stood watching him as he finished lighting the candle stubs that stood on saucers around the room, perched precariously on stacks of books and on side tables crammed with cracked and moldy cups.
  40. treacherous
    dangerously unstable and unpredictable
    In time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across. However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water.
  41. imbue
    fill or soak totally
    Ah, but the third Hallow is a true Cloak of Invisibility, Miss Granger! I mean to say, it is not a traveling cloak imbued with a Disillusionment Charm, or carrying a Bedazzling Hex, or else woven from Demiguise hair, which will hide one initially but fade with the years until it turns opaque.
  42. pedantic
    marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning
    “Exactly!” said Xenophilius, his forefinger raised pedantically. “The sign of the Deathly Hallows on Ignotus’s grave is conclusive proof!”
  43. infallible
    incapable of failure or error
    “Don’t you realize, he’s right? I’ve got so used to Harry’s Cloak and how good it is, I never stopped to think. I’ve never heard of one like Harry’s. It’s infallible. We’ve never been spotted under it—”
  44. impenetrable
    permitting little if any light to pass through
    There was a colossal explosion. The sound of it seemed to blow the room apart: Fragments of wood and paper and rubble flew in all directions, along with an impenetrable cloud of thick white dust.
  45. intersperse
    place between or among
    “And now it turns out you only called us here to try and blow us up!” roared the Death Eater, and there was a volley of bangs interspersed with squeals of agony from Xenophilius.
Created on Wed Jan 03 10:56:19 EST 2018 (updated Tue Sep 11 12:03:43 EDT 2018)

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