A. N. So it seems I have more to say about this.

Harry, Hermione, Roman, and Zacharias Smith were all working at the same workstation in herbology. Roman was, again, trying to use this time to force Harry to learn the refined manners of the pure-blood culture.

"Roman, just stop it. I am not interested in this stuff," complained Harry.

Zacharias snorted. "Of course you aren't; you're as bad as a muggleborn, coming into our society without even trying to learn our ways."

Here Hermione took offense. "That's not fair! I try really hard to be polite, but there don't seem to be any books in the library to teach all the rules that Roman keeps telling Harry about."

Roman spoke up in response to Hermione's statement. "I'd be happy to teach you, as well, Hermione."

As Hermione began to look excited about learning, Zacharias mused, "They really should have a class for first years to take that would introduce the muggle-raised to our customs."

"Yeah! And at the same time, the magic-raised could be taking a basic muggle-studies class to make sure they don't break the Statute of Secrecy." Zacharias looked a little peeved about the idea that he would need to learn that, but grudgingly agreed, at least in his head, that it was something they all needed to know.

"That's ridiculous; those classes would never get onto the curriculum," Harry dismissed. The other three were all affronted.

"Just because you don't care if you offend everyone you meet, doesn't mean that the rest of us don't want people to like us!" shot Hermione.

"Listen, you've got this whole thing backwards. The purebloods don't look down on muggleborn because the muggleborn don't understand the culture; they deliberately try to keep the muggleborn from learning the culture because they look down on them. It happens in muggle society as well; it's called classism. If you have a special set of rules that the elite pass down to their offspring, then it becomes much easier to identify who is an elite and who doesn't belong. Fancy ways of addressing one another and complicated social hierarchy aren't a culture; they are a means to make them feel better than us, and to exclude us," explained Harry.

Roman replied, "There might be some truth to that, Harry, but you have a chance to be accepted by that ruling elite if you'd just learn the rules. Then you could try to change things from the inside."

"You don't change the rules of a game by playing it, Roman. You'd be better off up-ending the board. Personally, I'm not interested in changing anything, anyway. I'd rather just not play. It's not like there is much reason to stay in the wizarding world after school, anyway. There doesn't seem to be an entertainment industry, and the only jobs seem to be in Diagon Alley or the Ministry, and frankly, I don't see why wizards need money in the first place. You can make practically anything from magic; why buy things?"

Zacharias, though annoyed, answered, "You can't just conjure food or transfigure it from rocks or something. When you transfigure something, the world treats it as though it was whatever it started as. So it would be the same as eating nothing or a rock."

"Sure, but you can duplicate food just fine. I don't see any reason you couldn't make an ever-full jar of nutrient-paste that never goes bad and just transfigure some of it into enjoyable meals."

Hermione, Zacharias, and Roman just shared a glance, wondering if Harry just solved poverty in the wizarding world.