Core Data - Discard changes

Hope someone can explain what's going on.

If I get an object from my Core Data model, modify a property which is not persisted or even defined in the model! and then destroy and get the object again the value is still as previously set.

Why is this?

Promotion *promotion = [Promotion promotionWithId:[NSNumber numberWithInt:1512] inManagedObjectContext:context];
    [promotion setQuantity:[NSNumber numberWithInt:2]];
    NSLog(@"%d", [promotion.quantity intValue]);
    promotion = nil;

    promotion = [Promotion promotionWithId:[NSNumber numberWithInt:1512] inManagedObjectContext:context];
    NSLog(@"%d", [promotion.quantity intValue]);
    promotion = nil;

Output is:

2 2

For information purposes:

+(Promotion *)promotionWithId:(NSNumber *)promotionId inManagedObjectContext:(NSManagedObjectContext *) context {
    NSFetchRequest *fetchReq = [[NSFetchRequest alloc]init];
    [fetchReq setEntity:[NSEntityDescription entityForName:@"Promotion" inManagedObjectContext:context]];

    NSPredicate *query = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"promotionId=%d", [promotionId intValue]];
    [fetchReq setPredicate:query];

    NSMutableArray *resultArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc]initWithArray:[context executeFetchRequest:fetchReq error:nil]];

    if([resultArray count] > 0) {
        return [resultArray objectAtIndex:0];
    }

    return nil;
}