"This is what I know," she said, cutting him off.  "Auror Hestia Jones's wand appears to have been the one used to kill Scrimgeour.  She has been placed in custody.  However, she is also showing signs ofObliviation and possibly the Unforgivables.  A medi-witch will examine her first thing in the morning, as well as an Obliviator.  The Aurors who examined the scene found no evidence of any kind that would lead to a suspect.  And as of now, all the guests have been questioned and released."

"We need to appoint a Minister pro tempore," Byrne said.  "And I nominate myself."

Maria sighed at the idea of Byrne as Minister, even for the month it would take to arrange an emergency election.  He would surely run the wizarding government into the ground, or do something stupid like announce their presence to theMuggles .  But a decision would need to be made by the seven of them, and if the majority decided that he was the best one for the job, then she would have to deal with that decision.

"And I nominate Maria," Eva Woodward announced.  Senft, who was standing next to her, nodded in agreement.

The modest thing to do would have been to protest.  Maria had never been overly modest, nor had she made any secret her desire to one day have the Minister's office. 

"Are there any other nominations?" she asked after a moment.  No one else offered a suggestion, so she moved onto the voting.

"Anonymous vote," she said, pulling out a piece of parchment and ripping it into eight equal pieces before passing the stack to Adessi.  While Violetta passed the bit of paper around, Maria summoned asuffragium box from storage.  The magical boxes ensured against miscounting or tampering as they magically read each slip of paper fed to them and tallied the results.  Merlin forbid they have a debacle such as the AmericanMuggles had just two years ago.

She calmly accepted her own slip if paper from Violetta and checked to make sure everyone had a quill.  Within moments she was pushing her vote into the slot on the top of the box and stepping aside so that ParryLeandre could do the same.

"The vote is six to one," Charles Senft announced after they had all cast their votes.  "Maria over Nathan."

Maria sighed in relief and looked towards Byrne, who looked displeased by the outcome.  "All right.  Elections are to be held on the first Monday past the one month mark.  That would mean January seventh.  And we need to draw up an official announcement to be released tomorrow.  I would like to keep Hestia's name out of it for now, until we know if she wasbespelled or not.  Besides that, does anyone have any suggestions?"


[Summary: Maria and the other Heads deal with the aftermath of the murder and elect an interim Minister.  Wish Maria luck.]