Fresh pickled toads - metaSHIPping

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52339

Janet wrote, about the valentine sent to Harry:

> Yes, it could have been Draco, but I think it was much more likely 
to have 
> been the joke-loving Fred and George. It's just their style, 
including the 
> fresh pickled toads (which, as you correctly point out, no one who 
was 
> trying to be romantic would use).

Well, we haven't actually seen a lot of the cultural approach to 
romance in the WW yet.  We don't know if the comparison of eyes to 
toads is:

 - irony
 - crude joking
 - romantic
 - indicative of an aspect of wizard life we haven't seen yet, which 
may allow a romantic application.

I like the last because it's generally the case that wizards are 
more closely linked than muggles to animals in one way or another.  
If you can't become one and don't own one, chances are you resemble 
one, like the batlike Snape.

Comparison to an animal such as a toad may therefore indicate a form 
of appreciation we haven't been privy to yet.  OTOH, blackboards are 
unlikely to connote much.

Unfortunately, so far the only guides to WW romance and courtship we 
have had are Hagrid and Lockhart.  If dressing surly dwarfs as 
cupids is typical, then WW conventions are definitely different from 
ours.

David