Kingsley Shacklebolt

I am just in the process of reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows out loud for my darling and beloved aunty, who I hope isn't reading this because I'm probably going to say something about who dies in the seventh book. I have been doing this for many a year, along with my darling mum, but this time it's very high-tech and new-millennium. We used to read onto tapes, and now, now I am reading it onto CDs. I have music-recording software for my computer, and I use my headphones with the microphone attachment. It's all a lot easier: I don't have to use one hand to hold a microphone, so I have two hands for holding the book, and furthermore I can create track splits in the software with just the click of a button and burn the CD straight from the software, and CDs are more space-efficient, and, gosh, it's just a lot easier.

Okay, so raptures about my new improved method aside, here's the pathetic thing about the reading I am doing right now. It's to do with Kingsley Shacklebolt, and I am now about to reveal who dies in the seventh book, so don't look, anyone who doesn't want to know.

I love Kingsley Shacklebolt. I wish we could have seen more of him, cause I think he's swell. He has a deep soothing voice; he's so swell that even the Dursleys like him; he's insanely competent and clever and thinks on his feet; he delivers what is definitely the most effective line in the seventh book and probably in the whole series (though I have a sentimental attachment to "Quite the double act, Sirius Black and James Potter!" because every time I read it my heart stops and I forget that I know perfectly well that this is not a bad thing because Sirius is a GOOD GUY); and he becomes the Minister of Magic and just sorts everything out, I bet. In fact, in the seventh book, I love him rather more than Lupin, who kind of acts like a bit of a dick in a lot of this book, and I appreciate your inner turmoil, guy, but proposing to abandon your wife and baby makes me VERY CROSS, though I am really, really sorry you had to die, and that fuckhead Dolohov, if I ever get my hands on him, I will, I will, I will STOMP ON HIS FACE, because you had just had a baby, a dear sweet little baby, and it was very uncool for you to have to perish so that the baby could grow up in a better world, which he does do, so well done you, I guess.

Anyway, I love Kingsley Shacklebolt, and I don't want to do his voice wrong. My mum and I decided as soon as we met darling Kingsley that he probably had a bit of a Caribbean accent, which actually now that I'm thinking about it must be because his name is Kingsley, and the capital of Jamaica (which is in the Caribbean) is Kingston, and that must be why we thought of it. But Kingsley has a number of lines in this book, and I turn out to be not wholly and horrifically unsuccessful at doing a Caribbean accent (though it isn't one for the books or anything). The only thing is, and believe me when I say that I recognize how absurd this is, that I can only do it with reference to Sebastian the crab.

So here's me, cruising along, reading, and I espy a line by Kingsley Shacklebolt somewhere up ahead. I read right up to the sentence before Kingsley speaks, and then I stop recording and sing quietly, "Under the sea, under the sea, dahling it's better down where it's wetter, take it from me!" and then, only then, am I good to go. I really need to take a class and learn how to do all kinds of accents, so that I wouldn't have to resort to silly tricks like this.

I love reading out loud. I'm going back to it now.