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a fool for you
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“Here we are,” Harry flicked his wand to lower the tray of butterbeers onto the mottled oak Three Broomsticks table, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger, the lenses perpetually smudged to a point Hermione thought negligent- but she was not his keeper.
And the lens cleaning charms always wore off.
“Cheers!” Ron said, clinking his frosted glass against the other two. He took a long pull, smacking away the foam resting on his top lip.
Hermione stared, seventeen unique emotions pulling at her face; all of which somehow synonymous with disgust.
“To finishing this training session in one piece,” Harry took a drink, wiping his own foam with the back of his hand.
“Godric willing,” Ron whinged.
“Oh. Hermione, we got the go ahead from McGonagall.”
“Oh?” She played it off like she’d forgotten the idea she’d given him, the one she very casually reminded him of, every other day.
“Yeah, we can stay in Gryffindor tower, you’ll be in Gin’s dorm. She said you could head up early, mentioned something about the library being ready for your inspection.”
She nodded, her hands clasped around the frigid mug, breathing easy for the first time in what felt like… awhile.
The dread of Christmas.
Wendell and Monica had no daughter.
Fred’s absence at the Burrow tainted every room.
Grimmauld Place would never be more than somewhere to hide; from life or death… whichever one preferred.
A last Christmas at Hogwarts was more than she was ever promised, and so she took it, holding tightly with both hands.
Professor McGonagall greeted her as she walked up the stone steps, jaw clenched from the cold, an ache feathering to her temples, a dull ringing in her ears.
“We’re happy to have you here with us, Miss Granger,” her voice carried an emotional, unfamiliar wobble Hermione didn’t care for. There were some who were required to hold steady. Minerva McGonagall was one of them.
“I think you’ll be pleased to see the condition of the castle,” she continued.
Hermione hadn’t taken her eyes off it from the moment it loomed in the distance on her walk in. It was her north star.
“It looks quite the same,” she said, scrutinizing the patina of the stonework, a meticulous restoration made possible by millions of donated galleons.
“Exactly,” McGonagall turned, holding her skirts as she made her way up the steps, “that was the point.”
The dorm was empty when she arrived, the four-poster set for her with a note from Ginny, letting her know she was flying drills on the Quidditch pitch.
To come by, if she’d like.
She set the note back on the pillow, letting her holdall fall to the ground.
It was the bed Lavender would have slept in, to the left of the window- Parvati on the right.
She blinked it away, whatever it was, and cracked on.
Madame Pince looked unsurprised to see her, but that wasn’t to say she seemed fond. Hermione scoured the stacks, scrutinized the lanterns, ran her hands along the tables polished by hundreds of years of books sliding across their top, and quills tapping against them, the metronome revising was laid atop.
It was the same.
It smelled just as she remembered.
That was the point, she heard McGonagall say.
The newest edition of Hogwarts, A History was left out on a table, she’d seen it at Flourish and Blotts a time or two. She stood still, flipping through the pages, eventually getting to the newly added addendum; the Battle of Hogwarts, the damages incurred, and the restoration efforts… an appendices of what had been truly lost.
She snapped it shut, refusing to read more.
It looked the same, it all looked the same, but everything had changed.
That was the point.
She was Goldilocks, lost in a castle. Seeking out anything that felt right, but coming upon nothing but things too different, or too unchanged.
She thought coming to Hogwarts would fix whatever was wrong with her; soothe the unease she carried day after day that clung to her like sticker burs- hoping to be spread about in melancholy.
She’d seen no one in the halls, like she was emitting an energy that had them walking the other way as she pulsed near. She was glad for it, she could hardly carry on a conversation anymore, save for with Harry and Ron.
They were hours out, arriving just before dinner. Her time alone was dwindling and for it, she had nothing to show.
Opening the library door, once again, she nodded at Madam Pince and headed straight back, around the Arithmancy stacks to the bank of tables beyond.
One table sat below the window, overlooking the east end of the grounds. She got settled, sinking into work that hardly needed to be done, not by her- not now, but it didn’t much matter.
She rummaged for a pen, clicking it three times before touching the page.
The first hundred words about the proposed legal definitions of hag and crone, came easily… but the Wizengamot had a 500-word minimum to submit petitions to the court, an excess she couldn’t rise to, at the moment.
She undid her braid, scrubbing her scalp with her nails in an effort to stimulate something. She sighed, her eyes fluttering closed.
Something shuffled in her periphery, interrupting the stolen moment of relaxation and rendering her alert.
Her gaze caught him right away, sitting there against a stack, a half dozen texts surrounding him.
He had one long leg jutted out, the other bent at the knee, his arm balancing on top with a black quill dancing between his fingers.
His tie was loosened, his shirt unbuttoned at the neck.
“Have you been here the entire time?” She asked.
He nodded.
Draco
The first time he saw Hermione Granger wandering forlornly through the castle on Christmas Eve, he thought he’d encountered a ghost. He watched her slip silently down the halls, climbing the stairs to Gryffindor tower with a brown leather bag slung on her shoulder, a thick plait reaching the small of her back.
The very same ghost appeared in the library, next, where she flicked through the latest release of Hogwarts, A History. It was there that he determined she was corporeal, a woman, rather than the memory of one.
She looked pained as she turned the pages, leaving as quickly as she’d come in.
Hours later she returned, settling herself at a table near him and causing a fuss. She moved it a hair over, so it sat right beneath the window. She switched out her chair for one across the way. Out came papers, scrolls and notebooks.
She dumped out her satchel, shaking it violently, ceasing once she dislodged a well-worn (chewed upon) Muggle pen.
He was three hours into a dizzying study session put upon him by Professor Slughorn… who in very clear terms said that if Draco wanted to obtain a Mastery in Potions, he had 10,000 hours of studying ahead, so he best get started.
He averaged four a day, with classes, though some days he flew drills with Ginevra.
The fresh air was good for him.
Once his 8th year was up, his plea deal to circumvent Azkaban was fulfilled and he could study in earnest. He could devote every waking hour toward it, if he wanted.
He was the only 8th year Slytherin, in a dorm by himself, in a house he wasn’t sure he belonged to, anymore. It all felt different but he was told it was the same. He stopped arguing long ago.
When she’d appeared in the hall, he thought he willed her into existence.
She’d haunted his thoughts since his trial.
Why did she do it? She had no reason to try and save him.
She owed him nothing and now he felt he owed her everything, the knowledge of such a debt paralyzed him in her presence.
He’d reread the same sentence 26 times since she walked in, and still, he had no idea what it said… something about Snargaluf pod harvest? The decimation of the temperate rainforests in County Antrim?
He could feel his pulse quicken as he squeezed together his forefinger and thumb.
She let down her hair, untwining the braid and shaking out the strands. Curls piled upon her shoulders, cascading around her arms, falling down her back as she closed her eyes.
His gaze was fixed on her, unblinking. He thought he could smell her hair from here, but he was afraid to breathe too deeply and break the spell of serenity that had somehow been cast upon her.
His book had other intentions, thudding softly against the floor as it slid off his thigh. Her eyes flew open, landing on him.
She removed her hands from her hair, straightening in her seat.
Serenity, gone.
“Have you been here the entire time?”
He nodded.
“Sorry,” she said. “I hadn’t noticed you.”
“Obviously.”
Her eyebrows pulled together. “I’ll just get out of your way, then.”
“It’s a big enough space for two, but I’m done, anyway,” he said, gathering his things.
She watched him, flicking her pen around with two fingers.
“How are you?” She asked.
He shrugged a shoulder. “Just grand, Granger.”
“I got your letter,” she said at his back.
He stopped, head pointed to the floor.
She’d never written back. Every other recipient of his apology-tour-via-post had… even Weasley converted his grunts into script in response.
But not her.
“Good.”
Hermione
Once Harry and Ron had arrived, Hermione’s chronic misery pressed itself against the walls of her mind, fastened to the edges but almost imperceptible to anyone looking.
They sat around the fire with Ginny, drinking butterbeer and cider spiked with fire whiskey until dinner was served.
One long table sat in the middle of the hall, every person in attendance unrecognizable to her (or rather, uninteresting- which seemed less than charitable given the season), save for Ginny, Harry and Ron.
And Malfoy, who sat across her, and eight seats down, giving a well-spaced buffer between him and anyone with the name Weasley.
“You can sit with us,” Ginny said to him, “I already said you would.”
“I don’t know why you would speak for me,” he drawled, flipping a page in his book, his roast untouched.
Hermione leaned in, taking in the cover.
“Ginny,” she said quietly, “have you read those books I sent? The ones for your paper in Muggle Studies?”
Her eyes widened, her finger up as she chewed a roasted carrot. “I haven’t started in on the stack, yet, but, well… to tell you the truth, Malfoy has them. Said he’d let me know the gist for my paper,” she sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just really busy with Quidditch, and-”
“It’s no trouble,” Hermione shook her head. “I was just wondering.”
“He’s really enjoying them, if that’s worth anything. Look at him over there. Pleased as punch. That’s his happy face, believe it or not.”
He was halfway through Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
She was reading it as well, for one of her correspondence courses she’d enrolled in at Cambridge.
Her first instinct, a surprising one she had to tamp down vigorously, was to get up and sit herself eight seats down, and ask him what he thought. But she didn’t.
She couldn’t.
She should’ve written back to his letter… but she didn’t. She couldn’t.
Her friends talked all around her, laughing about something at Auror training the day before, marveling over Ginny’s improved stats. She tried not to look at him again, but she must’ve done it subconsciously, dozens of times.
How else could she know he avoided the Brussels sprouts, and that he added a touch of gravy. Then, a touch more.
More.
Four reapplications in total.
When dessert appeared, Ron gathered a sampling befitting a gluttonous giant. Chocolate mousse, caramel apple pasties, chocolate pumpkin bundts and cinnamon creme brûlée. Harry limited himself to a pasty, while Ginny did without.
Then there was Malfoy, crunching loudly, so noisily she couldn’t ignore it from eight seats down and across, in front of him a cut glass bowl piled with sugar-encrusted cranberries. They sparkled under the candlelight, cracking and popping every time he bit down, his jaw flexing over and over, his lips stained red.
“Hermione?”
He ate them like pieces of popcorn, dropping his head back to toss one in, his Adam’s apple bobbing with every swallow, never losing his place on the page.
His blonde hair fell upon his brow as he looked thoughtfully at the words before him. He leaned in, eyes narrowed, cranberry poised before his mouth, when suddenly he looked up, staring into the empty space before him, jaw slack in thought.
He set the book down, his thumb marking the page as he considered something; breathing in and out.
After a moment, he picked up the book, popped another cranberry, and began again.
“Hermione.”
Ron’s voice pulled her focus.
“Hmm?” She said, cracking through her creme brûlée’s top with the back of her spoon.
“I said, three times by the way, what did you do today?”
“Oh, not much. Walked around a bit, went to the-”
“Library,” Ron and Harry said in unison, finding it far too amusing.
Their conversation continued on, but she didn’t track it. She watched instead as Malfoy packed up his book, stretching his arms wide.
She witnessed him eat more than a dozen, but the bowl was still nearly overflowing, glinting, glowing. She looked over their dessert spread, where not a single cranberry could be found- not even as a garnish. Further down the table was devoid of them as well.
All she wanted was a cranberry.
He’d bogarted the entire lot.
She wanted to feel it give beneath her teeth, the bright, sour juice tempered by the coating of sanding sugar. She imagined it bursting in her mouth, sharp and tart, the thought of it making her salivate as she glared at the burnt cream in front of her; repellant and thick, sickly sweet.
She needed a cranberry.
“Alright there, Hermione?” Harry asked. “What did you say? Something about cranberries?”
“Did I?” Had she spoken aloud?
“Yeah,” Ron eyed her. “You did.”
“Did you know, to harvest the cranberry, they fill a bog with water and the ripe berries float on the surface… and you can wade through in a puddlesuit?”
“Okay,” Ron spooned in a mouthful of mousse.
“And all the spiders that lived in the bog,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him, “they scurry for higher ground.”
She tapped her nails atop the table, spider-like, as he swallowed under duress.
“Usually, the higher ground is the person, wading through.”
“Yeah, gathered that and thank Godric you decided to delight us with that piece of trivia after my meal,” he said, though he looked peaked as he pushed the goblet of mousse out of his way.
A bowl of sugared cranberries slid down the table, stopping right in front of her, the sudden cease of motion forcing two to tumble off the pile and plunk against the wood.
She looked to him, but he was already walking away.
There was something different about him, now.
The same could be said about her.
That was the point.
Sleep came in unpleasant, fitful bursts. When the sky finally reddened with the impeding dawn, she began layering. Long johns beneath her jeans and jumper, a wool coat, mittens, scarf and hat. She laced her boots and snuck from the dorm, onto the grounds minutes later.
Perhaps she was drawn there by a force unknown, because when she saw Malfoy settled on a beautifully transfigured bench abutting the frozen shoreline, she wasn’t surprised.
“Happy Christmas,” she said.
“Happy Christmas.” He nodded, a bottle of Ogden’s resting on his thigh, the neck strangled by his hand.
“May I join you?”
Draco
He smiled, the collar of his wool coat turned up, the cold chapping his cheeks and numbing his nose, his blood buzzing beneath his skin. “Of course you may.”
She sat stiffly, so bundled she could hardly bend, little puffs of steam emitting from her nostrils as she looked out over the water.
“Pretend we’re having it with eggnog, much more appropriate for such wee hours.” He held out the bottle.
She tried grabbing at it, but her mittens restricted the required dexterity.
He laughed, catching her off guard.
“Here.” He reached out to tip up her chin, her skin so warm it felt like fire licking his fingers.
“My God.” She ripped off her mittens and covered his hand with her own. “You’re ice!”
A moan escaped him as he let his head hang forward, relishing the burn.
“We’re so stupid,” she grumbled, setting warming charms upon them both. She summoned a rock from the beach and transfigured it into bowl, filling it with bluebell flames that curled up the sides and cast everything in indigo.
“There.”
He nodded, reaching out to tip her chin, again. He held up the bottle, waiting until she parted her lips.
He poured carefully, but still, a drop escaped, slowly moving down the corner of her mouth.
He leaned in as she angled toward him, her lips full, his eyes caught on them.
He wiped the whiskey with his thumb, tearing his gaze from her mouth to her hair, her eyes, as he exhaled. “Happy Christmas, Granger.”
“You’ve already said that.”
“It bears repeating.”
She sighed. "And why are you out here, all alone on such a happy Christmas?”
He blinked, turning to look out toward the water, the sun creeping up steadily under the threat of snow.
“Furthermore, why aren’t you home, with your mother?” She continued. “I didn’t figure I’d see you, here.”
He avoided the question like he avoided everything else- deflection, distraction.
“Why didn’t you write back to my letter?” He asked, not looking at her. “Was it too much, to ask forgiveness?”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, not at all. Of course I forgive you.”
His heart was in his throat, cutting off his air.
“Why?”
“Because you were a rotten little git who had very little choice in the matter.” She turned toward him, her hand brushing his thigh, reviving the nerves deadened by the chill. “And, also…”
“Also…”
“Because you asked.” She tapped at the whiskey, opening her mouth for him to pour her more. He obliged, willing his hand not to shake.
She winced at the taste of it. “There’s something brave about asking for forgiveness,” she said.
“But being brave doesn’t warrant a continued correspondence?”
“I didn’t imagine you’d care at all.”
“Oh,” he nodded. “I suppose I can understand that.”
“Right.”
“It’s just that I did.” He set the bottle between his legs. “It turns out I cared very much.”
She frowned. “I’m sorry.”
“I suppose I forgive you, Hermione.”
She laughed at his dramatics, and he wasn't sure he'd ever heard it, before. “Hermione? Am I now to call you Draco?”
A pitiful sound emerged before he could stop it, likely the whiskey’s fault. “Please.”
“What were you studying in the library, Draco?” She smiled into her scarf as he (involuntarily) made the noise again.
“Potions,” he said. “Always potions.”
“To what end?”
“Mastery.”
“Really?” She gasped.
He glared at her tone of surprise. “Yes.”
“No!” She squeezed his arm with a laugh. He looked down, staring at her hand until she pulled away. “I didn’t mean to seem rude, it’s just. Wow. That’s an undertaking.”
“You don’t think I can do it.”
“Of course you can,” she scoffed. “You were always too smart for your own good. Half my marks besting you, were out of spite.”
“I can’t imagine that’s true.”
She shrugged and grabbed the whiskey, taking a swig and handing it back. “And what will you do with a Mastery, Malfoy?”
He held up a finger. “Ah, ah…”
“Draco.”
He took a sip. “Well, first, I have to get it. Once I’m done here, I’ve thought seriously about renting a flat in London, something with a nice view, so when I’m studying 16 hours a day, I can look out at the life beyond me and pretend to be part of it.”
“In Muggle London?”
“You've heard of it? Fantastic,” he grinned at her eyeroll. “I think I’ll need two years of study to sit the test. I’ll start taking practice exams at the beginning of year two, to see where my deficits lay and better augment my studies to fit. I can convince my house elf to proctor them-”
“I can do that.”
“Professor Granger, are you?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m not altogether sure I could handle that,” he said, his heart rising again, so thick in his throat he couldn’t swallow. “But, I will take you up on it, of course. I would only benefit, having you near.”
A blush warmed her cheeks, but he could be convinced it was the cold.
He had no one to discuss such dreams with- he’d buried them inside for months, now.
“I find the Apothecary side of things; the sales, market demand, creating new potions to cure what ails us… all of it is fascinating. Academia, however… Well. Getting a potions Mastery is completely home study, I’m not sure if you were aware. There’s no certified program, no rubric, but I keep thinking, what if there was? What if there was a post-Hogwarts for all sorts of disciplines?”
“That…” she started, a look of incredulity on her face as he braced for impact.
The biting breeze rolled through the evergreens in the forest beyond, ruffling his hair, dipping his collar. His eyes watered, his nose ran… and he waited for Hermione Granger to tell him what an idiot he was. How unprepared and unqualified someone like him would always be.
“That sounds spectacular, honestly. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished for further education in magic.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Brilliant. I’d love to help, anyway I can.”
He ran a hand through his hair, gripping the back of his neck. “You think so?”
“I do.”
“And you’d want to help?”
“It would be thrilling… and rewarding, and impactful. I’ve nothing in my life that could be considered one of those things. I would love to, you’ve no idea.”
“Alright,” he nodded, unable to bite back his hopeful smile.
She exhaled, looking ahead, their sides warm where they touched.
She was beautiful, wasn’t she? He didn’t know how he could’ve ever thought otherwise, only that for various stretches of time- he did.
He’d take it all back, if he could.
Hermione
The sun was fully over the horizon, snow materialized in the air above, falling around them- icy dendrites spearing their woolen coats and tangling in their hair.
“We should head in, I suppose,” he said.
“If you insist.” She stood, taking three tentative steps only to look back.
He watched her, whiskey clutched in his hand. “How is it the only person to believe I could do something that might be considered good, is you?”
“I’m the brightest witch of my age, so I’d say it's that I’m rather quick on the uptake.”
“Ah, right.”
The whiskey pushed her forward. “It’s not hard to see, if you really look.”
“What?”
“The good in you.”
He let his head fall back, looking to the sky. “I’ll need you to alert the others, then. I’ve convinced them all I’m worthless and turns out it’s a difficult thing to walk back.”
“Shall I take out an ad in the Prophet? I can see it now,” she rolled her wrist, pointing her wand in the air above until it read: “DRACO MALFOY IS GREAT AND CERTAINLY DIDN’T PAY ME TO SAY SO” in luminescent smoke.
“Mmm, that might just do it,” he laughed- so strikingly beautiful, as he held out his elbow and they climbed the steps. “To breakfast?”
“Certainly.”
“Oh, hello,” Ginny called from the table, grinning at them. “Happy Christmas to you both. Sorry, Malfoy, we’ve already started in on your sweets.”
Hermione’s greeting was waylaid by witnessing the obscene, cellophane-wrapped display of gingerbread trees, marshmallow snowflakes, chocolate oranges, biscuits and bonbons and candy canes the length of her arm… all sat in a sleigh-shaped basket.
“Mother,” Draco sighed. “By all means continue to help yourselves, likely very little is poisoned.”
Harry put on a grimace-leaning smile.
Hermione took the seat next to Ron, across from Ginny and Harry, and Draco sat on her other side.
Ron passed a note to Draco. “For you,” she thought he said, though he was unable to enunciate a single syllable, his mouth so stuffed with mallow.
A breakfast of cinnamon buns, sausage links, fluffy eggs with roasted potatoes, and orange juice and coffee and two types of tea, descended upon them and they tucked in with few other words.
They ate and joked and Christmas felt miraculous; almost like a dream, putting together these people on this day and deciding it would be nice. After a string of terrible choices, she'd finally made a good one.
Upon finishing his second cinnamon bun, Draco picked up the note from his mother.
“A guilt-inducing missive because I chose to stay here, no doubt,” he said, shaking it open with one hand.
He started to reach for his glass of juice as he read, his arm hanging in midair as his breath quickened and complexion paled. He set it down, grabbing the table with two hands as he stood.
“Alright there, Malfoy?” Ginny asked.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, walking rigidly out the hall.
Hermione glanced at the folded note 11 times, trying to divine its message through sheer will, but alas.
20 minutes later, Ron was on his third helping, but he hadn’t returned.
She knocked over her juice, saying, “Oh, Gods, I’m such a twit,” for the benefit of no one, shaking out the hardly sodden piece of monogrammed parchment. “I best let it dry…” she held it out, waving her wand as she skimmed it, the message within quite concise:
- The betrothal contract was accepted.
- He would marry Astoria Greengrass on January 1st, and his subsequent sentence to Hogwarts would thereby be forgiven.
- He was expected home, tonight.
The light illuminating a dozen freshly dreamed visions of her own future winked out like a candle in the breeze.
She ran to the lake, forgetting her coat, her hat, her scarf.
Her teeth chattered so loudly he sat straight, turning with a glare only to see her and have his wariness turn to something plaintive, and sad.
He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he looked at her. “You read it?”
“I did.”
He swallowed, giving her a nod. “It was never meant to be.”
“What?”
“Doing anything else. Getting out,” he took another drink of whiskey, the bottle nearly drained, now. “Becoming better.”
“Draco-”
“I was born to be just… this,” he shook his head bitterly. “In a hundred lifetimes, I’ll never make it out.”
“You don’t know that. Perhaps-”
“It’s over,” he said. “And it never really began.”
“It’s not over. You can say no-”
“I can’t, actually.”
“Why not?” She demanded, her voice not so stern as she meant, coming off pitiful and needy despite her resolve.
“It’s not what’s done, Granger.”
There were any number of times in their shared past that she'd wished he'd fight what was asked of him, that he'd choose to be brave instead; but it never felt so significant as it did, now. “You’re just going to give up, then?”
He turned to look at her, his eyebrows pulling in wistfully as his gaze trailed down her face.
“I should have liked to have had you.”
The air rushed from her lungs. “In what way?”
“Any," he looked away. "All.”
Her actions surprised them both as she stepped between the spread of his knees and leaned in, shivering until she felt his arms come around her, wrapping them both in his coat as he pulled her astride him.
His fingers went into her hair, cupping the back of her head as his other hand skimmed beneath her jumper and long johns, skating up her bare back.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him deeply, searching out the taste of whiskey and cinnamon and the warmth they provided on his tongue.
The lake was silent, the only thing heard; their breathing, her moans, and his whispers of, “please, please, please.”
He trailed open mouth kisses down her neck, pulling at her jumper to lick along her collarbone. His fingers dug into the flesh at her hips, any bruises would last longer than whatever they had, here. She couldn't shake the thought of it until she felt him grow hard, desperate for friction, for her, right now. A seam-ripping spell and the quickest, clumsiest unbuttoning of trousers had them joined. It was brief, them. But not insignificant.
Maybe tomorrow was never promised, anyway.
He was the one to finally pull away, his cheeks pink and lips plush. “I’m sorry.”
She held either side of his head, her forehead pressed against his. She couldn’t let go. She wouldn’t move because she knew the moment she did they would cease to exist.
“Will you forgive me?” He asked.
No matter what she said, it would be a lie.
—
In the years that followed she sometimes thought she'd dreamt it. Him. Them.
But the hour hand that dutifully shuffled reality on struck every Christmas Eve, delivering with it a silver tureen of sugared cranberries and the promise that something that was known by two could never be forgotten by one.
—
On a particularly festive Christmas Day, the year she turned 39, when her life was big and her loves present and perfect, she tried to invent a Taboo for thoughts of him.
It didn’t take.
It never did.
That was the point.