Stormy Night (Monthly Pass)

Just as Dumbledore took Harry away from the Dursleys' home, something else was happening in the distant Americas.

Because of the time difference, it had only just begun to grow dark here, but the weather made that darkness considerably deeper.

Pitch-black clouds coiled above the harbor like pythons. After the final rumble of thunder on a summer evening, countless raindrops came crashing down in a vast deluge. The gale, sweeping in from afar alongside the sudden downpour, began to wreak havoc in the harbor. Hundred-ton steel vessels huddled within the port, yet even they could not escape being blown into creaking groans.

The flags at the harbor were tugged taut by the wind, stretched straight as steel plates welded onto their poles. Inside the night watch station, the two guards had tightly locked the windows and doors, hidden away in their little room with the radio on, listening to the news even though the reception was poor.

They had ended work early tonight, naturally not because of the weather.

After all, the forecast had predicted this typhoon three days ago, and a port of this scale had ample protective measures. Even if the typhoon truly arrived, as guards, they should have still patrolled wherever they could. But someone had paid them to get off work early today. In a position with so little profit to be had, they were naturally willing—as long as no one blew the place up, anything went.

All the staff had already left work early anyway. Whatever those people paying them wanted to smuggle in, any losses here could be blamed on the natural disaster. It had nothing to do with them.

The people who paid had made it clear beforehand that they were not there to steal anything. They merely wanted a place to make