Nora is a petite girl, short but not too skinny, with white-blond hair cut to her chin in a bob. Her large, round, brown eyes look perpetually alarmed, and her nose and mouth seem to disappear below them. She has a round, dark freckle below and outside of her right eye, almost on her cheek-bone. Her fair skin comes from her Norwegian mother, round shoulders, and a blocky figure which she hides when possible.

When not in school robes, her muggle clothes are simple and demure: a black turtleneck with slacks and black dress shoes. She initially brought her outfit from the muggle boarding school she attended, so she might mix in the pleated skirt, collared blouse, grey vest, or tights with other clothing. She wears a single velvet black barrette on one side of her hair, and always has a diamond tennis bracelet on her left wrist.

At first, Nora is very quiet and shy. She is extremely sensitive to her surroundings, and the apparent thoughts and feelings of others. She lives in her head--always observing and analyzing everything around her. It’s hard to get one by Nora as she is keenly aware of everything.

While she strives to be friendly, she can be too blunt, preferring to just speak the truth. She’s not good at nuance or subtlety. Without a clear objective, she’s rather laid-back, as she’s not accustomed to demanding much of anything. But if there is a goal, she becomes intensely focused. She loves applying herself, excelling, and impressing others--especially teachers.

Growing up in a strict environment, both at school and at home, taught Nora to be very disciplined. Her hair and clothes are always neat. She always arrives on-time. Any space allocated to her stays tidy; her clothes folded, her scrolls tied and stacked, her potion ingredients bottled, labelled, and alphabetized.

Likes: Sweets, baked goods, puzzles, physical activities, jet engines, Chinese culture, violin, ballet

Dislikes: Social expectations, banality, wool clothing, loud noises

Nora grew up right in the middle of London in Camden for those early, delicate years of her life. Around age 5, her mother left--leaving Nora with only a few glancing memories and a lot of confusion. Soon after, her father moved out of the city to the Hillingdon burrough where they had a very eccentric family home. Her father had considerable money, being related rather indirectly but not inconsequentially to the Rolls family. All she knew was that he went to fancy meetings, and often had official-looking people over to the house.

Nora had not seen her mother since that day. Her father always said he married a crazy woman, and that she “pulled a fast one on him,” and she was “strange,” and he hoped Nora wouldn’t be “strange” like her. Nora wasn’t sure what that meant, but she suspected it was why she was always upstairs in one of her rooms, rarely allowed to mingle with the adults, and never having children over. She had three rooms to herself: her bedroom with a large day-bed, plenty of stuffed toys, a dresser, and vanity; a play room full of doll houses, dolls, puzzle games which she loved most, and even a small plastic indoor playground; and a study room with her books, notebooks, and a large computer monitor. On top of school work, she received dance and violin lessons through the large screen--private online training.

After moving to Hillingdon, Nora’s father, Daniel, started her at a private school called St. Brigid's. While she diligently obsessed over school work, she never did very well, and somehow found herself in trouble even though she tried her best to behave. The students didn’t like her, and the teachers weren’t too fond of her, either.

Though she didn’t have many (or any) friends, Nora did enjoy those few times she was allowed to join the adults--her father’s friends--downstairs. They all wore suits and smoked cigarettes and drank that foul-smelling, amber liquid in silly child-sized glasses. And they always looked at her curiously, and told her father how smart she was. She figured they were just being nice since she did so poorly in school. She also got to visit some neat places in London, and see history and art museums, and well as taking one trip--her absolute favorite memory--to China. She loved fully escaping everything familiar and getting lost in another culture, another world altogether.

I tried my best to behave at St. Brigid’s, but trouble always found me. It didn’t help that the other students liked to act up and then somehow pin it on me! Once a few students in my class kept messing with my stuff--moving my notebook, taking my pencil, etc.--but when I got upset the teacher only yelled at me for making a fuss. Finally, she told me to go to the Headmistress’s office. I had never been in that much trouble before.

I was so scared, I don’t know what came over me--I ran and hid, as if that would do any good. I found our trophy room which was thankfully empty and thought maybe I could say I got lost on the way to the office and they would forget the whole thing. Maybe if I stayed until the end of the school day, they’d have no choice but to send me home and deal with it later.

So I chose one hiding spot, then another. I heard footsteps and panicked, moving to another spot, and I was standing right in the middle of the room when the door flung open! I froze like an iguana. It was the Headmistress and two other teachers. But then the strangest thing happened--they looked around and acted as if they didn’t see me.

All three teachers walked around the room, checking all the hiding places I had just left, and looked right through me several times, saying “I don’t know where she’s gone! She’s not in here.” I was so shocked, I didn’t move or make a sound.

After a minute or two, they left. My heart was pounding. There was no way they would pretend. If they were letting me off the hook, they would just come tell me, right? Not knowing what to do, I decided not to test my luck and stayed hidden for the rest of the day. Finally I heard the bell and commotion of students pouring out of the classrooms. I really didn’t want to sleep in the big, dusty trophy room overnight, so I finally came out and gave myself up.

After the debacle of turning invisible, Nora didn’t know what punishment her father would dream up. Perhaps he would take all her toys and games away. Perhaps he would take her TV and she could no longer receive lessons over video-chat.

But he sat her down at the dining room table and asked a lot of questions. It seemed like he believed her, which she found, well, unbelievable. Then finally he said, “Try not to do that again. And don’t tell anyone about it. You understand?”

The very next week they got her letter for Hogwarts.

Her father simply said, “I was afraid of this.” Everything was so confusing. Nora’s dad kept giving her that worried look. She had never seen him act this way. Then, before she knew it, he was driving her all the way into London, just like they did when visiting those big fancy offices. Except this time they went to a strange, rather motley neighborhood she had never seen.

“You’re going to a new school,” was all he said. They went into a dark restaurant, a “pub” her father called it, full of people in bizarre clothing. A kind but scraggly looking man took them out back and, to Nora’s surprise, tapped a brick wall so that the bricks moved.

The trip to Diagon Alley was a conflicting whirl of overstimulation--everything around her was mind-boggling, but her father was terse and curt, leaving her at an ice cream shop while he ran all over buying her supplies. Nora was sure the entire time it was some sort of joke--perhaps her father had orchestrated all this so that she would go to a new school without getting upset. Even upon receiving her wand, she was suspicious that it was a matter of complex optics and pyrotechnics.

When they returned home, he put her wand and her new things and her trunk all away. Life returned to normal. It almost seemed as if none of it had happened, and Nora wondered if it was a dream. She tried asking him about it, but he’d say, “Don’t worry about that now,” and would think of a chore or schoolwork that she should do--so she stopped asking. She wondered about her new school, and then one day her father said they would be going to the train station the following morning.

So Nora got up early and put on the only school uniform she had. And there it was! The trunk with all her new things in it! Her father carried and rolled it for her (it had wheels on one end.) And then they went to a vaguely familiar train station, King’s Cross, and he told her to run straight into a brick wall. She couldn’t believe it. She knew he was sending her away, but was he trying to humiliate her, too? But after she saw a few others run through the wall as if it were made of water, and saw a very serious look on Father’s face, she realized she must do it. Her father told her good-bye, patting her shoulder, and that he would see her in the summer. She swore she noticed tears around his eyes--something she had never seen before. And the rest is history.