Centerfold

Hermione showed up for her photo shoot not quite sure what to expect.

As soon as she walked in the door, she felt her Gryffindor courage receding and she couldn’t help but wonder what she had gotten herself into.

David Flynt noticed her and quickly walked over to her.

“Hermione! I see you are a punctual person. I have several people I’d like you to meet,” he said, taking her arm and leading her to a group of people standing by what she assumed was the set.

“This is Kevin, he’s the make-up artist. Susie here is the wardrobe mistress. Michael is going to be the photographer, and this is Angela, his assistant. Jessica is the hairstylist, she’s not here yet,” David said with a frown, looking around, “and Mary is a… specialist in certain physical treatments.” As each person was introduced they either nodded their head or shook her hand. They were all polite, treating this like any other business introductions.

Hermione was having a hard time wrapping her mind around the notion that in a short time, these people would all be seeing her starkers. Not to mention taking pictures of her exposed bits.

David had been in this business for a long time. He was well aware that models had different personalities. Some of the women who posed got a thrill from being naughty, while some were quite comfortable with themselves and didn’t have problems being naked. But some of the women were like this Hermione. Shy and lacking self-confidence.

Oh, he knew she was quite confident about her mental capabilities. But she had no self-esteem about her physical appearance. A shame really. She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, but she was really quite attractive. Of course, when his crew was done with her, watch out world.

“Hermione, if you’re ready, you’ll be starting with Mary.”

Hermione took a deep breath and straightened her spine. She knew she could do this. She was a Gryffindor. She reminded herself to think of all the good she could do with the huge amount of money they were paying her.

Taking another deep breath, she nodded. “Lead the way,” she said to Mary, and with a grin, Mary did.

ooooOOOOOooooOOOOOooooOOOOOoooo

Hermione found herself in a smallish room with a table that looked an awful lot like a medical examination table.

“Hermione, if you will disrobe and get under the sheet, I’ll begin.”

“Ah, Mary, what is it exactly that you do?”

Mary smiled, “I guess David didn’t tell you. I mostly do hair removal. In the Muggle world, photographs can be airbrushed, but that doesn’t work to well in wizarding photos, so we de-hair and airbrush the model, if you will.”

“Oh.”

Mary turned her back while Hermione removed her clothing and got under the sheet. She felt strangely like she was at her yearly physical exam. By the time Mary was done, Hermione felt that was a fairly apt comparison. Mary had been quite thorough in her hair removal.

Hermione generally didn’t bother with much other than her legs and under her arms. Mary removed all of her body hair. When Hermione had asked why that was so important, Mary had informed her that the hair would reflect light and throw off the pictures.

Mary had begun with her legs and arms, and then moved to her back. She had then had Hermione turn over onto her back and removed the hair from her stomach and breasts. Last, she had Hermione put her feet in stir-ups so that she could deal with Hermione’s pubic hair.

Hermione had been touched between her legs before. She wasn’t a virgin; two of her Muggle boyfriends had become lovers. And of course she had visited the Muggle doctor at her mother’s insistence each summer for a yearly exam since she was fifteen, but this touch was different.

Mary was gentle, and yet professional. She felt like a strange cross between the doctor and the lover as her hands gently parted Hermione’s folds while her wand cast a warm beam of light on Hermione’s flesh.

The combination of embarrassment and arousal caused Hermione to flush, but Mary was used to this reaction in first time models and didn’t comment.

When she was finished, she looked Hermione over with a critical eye.

“Not bad. I think we may need to darken your nipples, though. They would hardly show up in pictures right now.”

Hermione just nodded.

Mary turned to a cabinet and removed a small vial and brush.

Stepping back to Hermione she said, “This may be a little cold. Sorry about that.”

“It’s alright,” was Hermione’s only response.

Mary took the brush and began slowly painting the potion on Hermione’s nipples. The potion was clear, but it immediately darkened her flesh by approximately two shades.

“What is that?” Hermione couldn’t help but ask.

“It’s a topical potion that increases melanin in the area it is applied to. It should wear off in a week or so.”

“Kind of a localized suntan?”

“Something like that, yes, but without the UVB rays. It’s a similar concept to the Muggles’ spray tanning, but ours actually affects the melanin, while theirs is a chemical dye.”

“Fascinating.”

Mary just smiled at the young woman, realizing that the academic discussion was calming her nerves.

“Well, I’m done with you. I believe your next appointment is with Jessica. Here’s a robe to wear. Follow me.”

Hermione took the terry-cloth robe of the type one wears at a spa and quickly covered her now hairless body. She then followed Mary through the door and to another small room with a stylist’s chair and a sink. Mary left her with a smile and Jessica looked up from the magazine she had been perusing.

“Hello, Hermione, I was just looked for some style ideas,” she said, getting up. “Go ahead and have a seat.”

Hermione took a seat in the recently vacated chair.

This was the session, other than the actual photography, that Hermione had been dreading the most.

Jessica looked at Hermione critically, evaluating her hair and her facial structures. Lifting the unruly mop, she noticed how the shorter hairs on the back of Hermione’s neck and around her faced tended to actually curl.

“Hermione, have you ever worn your hair short?”

“No. I’ve never really worn it any way but the way it is now.”

“Would you be willing to try it short? I think the weight of its length is pulling out the curl and so you end up with a tangled mess. But short the curls would come back, and it would be much less likely to tangle.”

Hermione thought about it for a moment. Her hair had always been her most notable physical characteristic. When she had gone on vacation to Paris with her parents, she had sat for a caricature picture, and her hair was what they had picked on. It was sort of like the Muggle Prince’s ears. However, Hermione had always hated her hair, so the thought of it being manageable was very appealing.

She never thought she’d have to gird up her courage to deal with her hair, but she decided that the whole affair was an adventure, so she might as well go for broke.

“You’re the professional. Do whatever you want.” Hermione took a deep breath and prayed that was the right thing to say.

She didn’t miss the huge smile that broke out on Jessica’s face. “Don’t worry, Hermione, you’ll look amazing when I’m done.”

“I’m counting on it.”

It didn’t take long for Jessica to remove the bulk of Hermione’s hair and style it. Once it was shortened, it framed her face with soft curls, and all Jessica had to do was run some mousse through it.

“Oh my goodness, Jessica! I can’t believe how easy you made that look!”

“Hermione, I can’t believe no one has ever encouraged you to cut it short before.”

“Well, they have, but my mother refused when I was young and as I got older, well, there was always so many stressful things going on that a new hair style wasn’t a high priority.”

“Yes, given your history I can understand that. So is there someone special that is going to like the new look?”

“No. I haven’t dated anyone in almost a year.”

“Really? The newspapers made it seem like you were quite close to the two young men in that famous picture.”

“Oh, I am. Harry and Ron are like the brothers I never had. We’ve been best friends since we were eleven.”

“Ah.” And really there was nothing more to say about that.

Jessica finished the style for the photography session by putting some sparkling rhinestone clips in Hermione’s hair to hold it off her face.

“All done here. Make-up is next.”

And with that, Jessica led Hermione out to the next room where Kevin was waiting for her.

“Well, darling, it seems that Jessica really worked magic with your hair! It frames your face so beautifully, let’s see what we can do to play out your eyes.”

Hermione took a seat in yet another chair and Kevin adjusted the lights to get the fewest shadows on her face.

There wasn’t a convenient mirror, so Hermione couldn’t watch what he was doing, but over the course of the next hour she felt like so many layers of make-up had been put on her face that it would crack if she smiled.

Finally he put on fake eyelashes and mascara and proclaimed her finished. Giving her a hand-mirror, Hermione gasped.

She didn’t normally wear make-up, and certainly never this much. She hardly recognized herself.

Even so, she also realized that she had never looked that good. Her eyes looked HUGE, her lips full, her skin flawless. Her cheeks had a rosy glow. He’d used some darker powder to make her chin stronger.

“Could you open your robe, please?” Kevin asked.

“What?” Hermione answered, nervous again.

“I need to check your cleavage. We usually put shadows with powder to make it bigger. It works better than a charm, since it doesn’t make the breasts heavy.”

“Oh,” Hermione said, blushing hard. She realized the blush was hardly visible on her face through all the make-up, but as she fumbled open the robe, the blush became apparent where it had crept down her chest.

Kevin smiled at her, but even in her somewhat flustered state, Hermione could tell it wasn’t the smile of a man leering at her; rather it was a smile for her relative naivety.

Quickly, he dusted some of the dark powder between her breasts, making the shadow deeper and adding the appearance of more cleavage.

When he was finished, Hermione quickly closed her robes again.

Make-up complete, Kevin took her to Susie to be dressed.

When Kevin left, Susie turned to Hermione and asked her to remove the robe. With only a hint of hesitation, Hermione complied.

“It seems kind of strange to get dressed only to take it all off in a few minutes time,” Hermione pointed out.

Susie laughed in agreement. “True, but you know, it’s the slow undressing that makes a strip-tease so sensual. You’ll be taking a series of pictures, wearing gradually less clothing. The first ones, you’ll be completely dressed, and those will be the teaser pictures that they use for publicity.”

Hermione thought her way entirely through that statement. She didn’t disagree with the heightened arousal of the slow removal of clothing, but she hadn’t really thought about the ‘publicity’ aspect of this.

“Ah, do you know what their referring to as publicity?” Hermione asked the costume mistress.

“Well, when they get a big name person to do a centerfold, generally, someone ‘leaks’ the news to the press. It boosts sales. Sometimes a picture is ‘leaked’ to. Given the timing and who you are, I’d be surprised if that doesn’t happen this time.”

“Ah.” Hermione remembered now the conversation in her office and how he had talked about publicity. She hadn’t really thought that part all the way through, though. Depending on where her activities were ‘leaked’ to, she expected to get a few choice words. Harry and Ron were not likely to take this well. Neither was Molly. Weasley. Or Minerva. For a moment, Hermione wished she could back out, although she knew she couldn’t since she had signed a magical contract.

Over and over in her head, Hermione chanted to herself to remember the money and her causes…

Susie put Hermione in black stockings and four inch heels, a pair of skimpy black lace knickers, and a tight, clingy silk dress that was backless, low-cut in front, and very short.

“No bra?” Hermione asked.

“Nope. This way we can show your nipples against the silk.”

Hermione was well aware of how the slip of the silk over her sensitive nipples was making them turn into hard pebbles.

“Well, my dear, you’re ready on the outside. If you’re ready on the inside, too, I’ll turn you back over to David and the photographer.”

“I’m as ready as I’m likely to be…”

And with that, she stepped into the studio.