Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Chapters 25–31

by J.K. Rowling
In his fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry must contend with terrifying dreams, malicious gossip, and a nasty new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. He continues his struggle against Lord Voldemort in this fifth installment of J.K. Rowling's popular series.

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. whimper
    cry weakly or softly
    “He can hardly say, ‘Sorry everyone, Dumbledore warned me this might happen, the Azkaban guards have joined Lord Voldemort’—stop whimpering, Ron—and now Voldemort’s worst supporters have broken out too.’ I mean, he’s spent a good six months telling everyone you and Dumbledore are liars, hasn’t he?”
  2. obscure
    not famous or acclaimed
    As for the freakish death of an obscure Department of Mysteries employee in St. Mungo’s, Harry, Ron, and Hermione seemed to be the only people who knew or cared.
  3. gruesome
    shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
    Those who came from Wizarding families had grown up hearing the names of these Death Eaters spoken with almost as much fear as Voldemort’s; the crimes they had committed during the days of Voldemort’s reign of terror were legendary. There were relatives of their victims among the Hogwarts students, who now found themselves the unwilling objects of a gruesome sort of reflected fame as they walked the corridors
  4. version
    an interpretation of a matter from a particular viewpoint
    They sounded curious rather than hostile now, and once or twice he was sure he overheard snatches of conversation that suggested that the speakers were not satisfied with the Prophet’s version of how and why ten Death Eaters had managed to break out of Azkaban fortress.
  5. expound
    add details to clarify an idea
    In their confusion and fear, these doubters now seemed to be turning to the only other explanation available to them, the one that Harry and Dumbledore had been expounding since the previous year.
  6. abashed
    feeling or caused to feel uneasy and self-conscious
    Harry had thought that the breakout from Azkaban might have humbled Umbridge a little, that she might have been abashed at the catastrophe that had occurred right under her beloved Fudge’s nose.
  7. intensify
    make stronger or more marked
    It seemed, however, to have only intensified her furious desire to bring every aspect of life at Hogwarts under her personal control.
  8. deprive
    take away
    It seemed to Harry that Umbridge was steadily depriving him of everything that made his life at Hogwarts worth living: visits to Hagrid’s house, letters from Sirius, his Firebolt, and Quidditch.
  9. deflect
    turn aside and away from an initial or intended course
    He was improving so fast it was quite unnerving and when Harry taught them the Shield Charm, a means of deflecting minor jinxes so that they rebounded upon the attacker, only Hermione mastered the charm faster than Neville.
  10. fluctuation
    an instance of change
    He had the horrible impression that he was slowly turning into a kind of aerial that was tuned in to tiny fluctuations in Voldemort’s mood, and he was sure he could date this increased sensitivity firmly from his first Occlumency lesson with Snape.
  11. canvass
    consider in detail in order to discover essential features
    After a few more painful minutes Cho mentioned Umbridge; Harry seized on the subject with relief and they passed a few happy moments abusing her, but the subject had already been so thoroughly canvassed during D.A. meetings it did not last very long.
  12. mingle
    bring or combine together or with something else
    Cho’s hand was lying on the table beside her coffee, and Harry was feeling a mounting pressure to take hold of it. Just do it, he told himself, as a fount of mingled panic and excitement surged up inside his chest.
  13. glacial
    devoid of warmth and friendliness
    In the second or so it took for him to take in what she had said, Harry’s insides had become glacial. He could not believe she wanted to talk about Cedric now, while kissing couples surrounded them and a cherub floated over their heads.
  14. distraught
    deeply agitated especially from emotion
    “They’ve run plenty of horrible stories about Harry this year without my help,” said Rita, shooting a sideways look at him over the top of her glass and adding in a rough whisper, “How has that made you feel, Harry? Betrayed? Distraught? Misunderstood?”
  15. alternative
    necessitating a choice between different possibilities
    “But the Daily Prophet’s version of the Azkaban breakout had some gaping holes in it. I think a lot of people will be wondering whether there isn’t a better explanation of what happened, and if there’s an alternative story available, even if it is published in a”—she glanced sideways at Luna, “in a—well, an unusual magazine—I think they might be rather keen to read it.”
  16. bombard
    address continuously, as if with a barrage
    “And then they spotted me, and obviously they know I know you, so they were bombarding me with questions,” Hermione told Harry, her eyes shining, “and Harry, I think they believe you, I really do, I think you’ve finally got them convinced!”
  17. peruse
    examine or consider with attention and in detail
    The pages carrying Harry’s interview had been bewitched to resemble extracts from textbooks if anyone but themselves read it, or else wiped magically blank until they wanted to peruse it again. Soon it seemed that every single person in the school had read it.
  18. impartial
    free from undue bias or preconceived opinions
    I, however, am here to explain the wisdom of centaurs, which is impersonal and impartial. We watch the skies for the great tides of evil or change that are sometimes marked there.
  19. priority
    status established in order of importance or urgency
    He was nothing like any human teacher Harry had ever had. His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even centaurs’ knowledge, was foolproof.
  20. dislodge
    remove or force from a position previously occupied
    “Oh no,” said Dumbledore with a grim smile. “I am not leaving to go into hiding. Fudge will soon wish he’d never dislodged me from Hogwarts, I promise you...”
  21. besiege
    harass, as with questions or requests
    Everybody seemed aware, for instance, that Harry and Marietta were the only students to have witnessed the scene in Dumbledore’s office, and as Marietta was now in the hospital wing, Harry found himself besieged with requests to give a firsthand account wherever he went.
  22. supportive
    furnishing assistance
    “The Inquisitorial Squad, Granger,” said Malfoy, pointing toward a tiny silver I upon his robes just beneath his prefect’s badge. “A select group of students who are supportive of the Ministry of Magic, handpicked by Professor Umbridge.
  23. mayhem
    violent and needless disturbance
    “But we’ve always stopped short of causing real mayhem,” said Fred.
    “But now?” said Ron tentatively.
    “Well, now—” said George.
    “—what with Dumbledore gone—” said Fred.
    “—we reckon a bit of mayhem—” said George.
    “—is exactly what our dear new Head deserves,” said Fred.
  24. pandemonium
    a state of extreme confusion and disorder
    One floor down, pandemonium reigned. Somebody (and Harry had a very shrewd idea who) had set off what seemed to be an enormous crate of enchanted fireworks.
  25. disruption
    a disorderly outburst or tumult
    He turned onto his side, wondering how Umbridge was feeling about her first day in Dumbledore’s job, and how Fudge would react when he heard that the school had spent most of the day in a state of advanced disruption.
  26. extract
    get despite difficulties or obstacles
    Harry moved into his usual position, facing Snape with the desk between them. His heart was pumping fast with anger at Cho and anxiety about how much Snape was about to extract from his mind.
  27. aspersion
    a disparaging remark
    He had been so sure that his parents had been wonderful people that he never had the slightest difficulty in disbelieving Snape’s aspersions on his father’s character.
  28. diversion
    an attack that draws an enemy's attention away
    “Well, we think we can find a way around that,” said George, stretching and smiling. “It’s a simple matter of causing a diversion.
  29. mitigate
    lessen or to try to lessen the seriousness or extent of
    He was not sure what Sirius could possibly say to him that would make up for what he had seen in the Pensieve, but he was desperate to hear Sirius’s own account of what had happened, to know of any mitigating factors there might have been, any excuse at all for his father’s behavior.
  30. vie
    compete for something
    Inspired by Fred and George’s example, a great number of students were now vying for the newly vacant positions of Troublemakers-in-Chief.
  31. miscreant
    a person without moral scruples
    Filch prowled the corridors with a horsewhip ready in his hands, desperate to catch miscreants, but the problem was that there were now so many of them that he did not know which way to turn.
  32. chaos
    a state of extreme confusion and disorder
    But not even the users of the Snackboxes could compete with that master of chaos, Peeves, who seemed to have taken Fred’s parting words deeply to heart. Cackling madly, he soared through the school, upending tables, bursting out of blackboards, and toppling statues and vases.
  33. overwrought
    deeply agitated especially from emotion
    The problem was that with just under a month to go until the exams and every free moment devoted to studying, his mind seemed saturated with information when he went to bed so that he found it very difficult to get to sleep at all. When he did, his overwrought brain presented him most nights with stupid dreams about the exams.
  34. fruitless
    unproductive of success
    “You want us to teach him,” Harry said in a hollow voice. He now understood what Firenze’s warning had meant. His attempt is not working. He would do better to abandon it. Of course, the other creatures who lived in the forest would have heard Hagrid’s fruitless attempts to teach Grawp English.
  35. flourish
    grow vigorously
    Meanwhile a flourishing black-market trade in aids to concentration, mental agility, and wakefulness had sprung up among the fifth and seventh years.
  36. stringent
    demanding strict attention to rules and procedures
    Now, I must warn you that the most stringent Anti-Cheating Charms have been applied to your examination papers. Auto-Answer Quills are banned from the examination hall, as are Remembralls, Detachable Cribbing Cuffs, and Self-Correcting Ink. Every year, I am afraid to say, seems to harbor at least one student who thinks that he or she can get around the Wizarding Examinations Authority’s rules.
  37. regime
    the governing authority of a political unit
    Our new—headmistress”—Professor McGonagall pronounced the word with the same look on her face that Aunt Petunia had whenever she was contemplating a particularly stubborn bit of dirt—“has asked the Heads of House to tell their students that cheating will be punished most severely—because, of course, your examination results will reflect upon the headmistress’s new regime at the school.
  38. warrant
    show to be reasonable or provide adequate ground for
    “On what grounds are you attacking him? He has done nothing, nothing to warrant such—”
  39. stun
    make senseless or dizzy by or as if by a blow
    “It’ll be his giant blood,” said Hermione shakily. “It’s very hard to Stun a giant, they’re like trolls, really tough.
  40. contemplate
    reflect deeply on a subject
    He fell asleep contemplating hideous revenges and arose from bed three hours later feeling distinctly unrested.
Created on Fri Aug 04 11:24:52 EDT 2017 (updated Tue Aug 01 14:44:12 EDT 2023)

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