Norah was born in Bordeaux, France as the first child of Amelie Renaud and Bernard Kittredge. However, her family moved from Bordeaux to Brighton when she was only a few months old so they could have a larger house. Despite Brighton's often dreary weather, she spent the majority of her time outside from the very beginning, where she watched (and eventually helped) her mother (a Herbologist) tend to her garden. As a toddler she was essentially a path of destruction, but her mother worked mainly at home and spent time trying to teach Norah her manners. Most of the manners bits went in one ear and out the other (much to her mother's chagrin) but she did pick up a lot of knowledge about plants and Herbology from her time spent with her mother, in addition to both French and English. Her relationship with Amelie was strong from the beginning even though she was subject to a lot of scolding, and she always admired her mother's skills. Her father was a healer who didn't get to spend a lot of time at home, but whenever he was there he'd entertain his daughter with endless fairy tales and stories of adventures and fun. When it became known that his wife was pregnant with a second child he opted to take more time off work, as four year old Norah was a handful even without a baby on the way. When Sebastian was born Norah didn't envy the attention he was given because she made quite sure that she got her fair share. Even when he was an infant she felt a strong sense of responsibility for him and would pretend he was her baby instead of her brother-at least until his nappies needed changing, anyways.

Once she was six she was sent to muggle school because her need for adventure brought on some unfortunate messes that lead her mother to believe she needed to get out of the house. Since Amelia was muggle born the children were used to spending time in the muggle world, and spent each summer with their maternal grandparents in France. She loved school at the start but as she aged she became more frustrated with the work, especially in maths and reading. Sebastian was much more adept at intellectual pursuits even as a child, which frustrated Norah even further as she was the older one. Her second brother, Marcel, was born when she was seven. Norah continued muggle schooling until she received her Hogwarts letter, usually training Marcel to be her protégé instead of doing her homework. As her parents were busy with work and two other children, she wasn't guided through developing too much of a work ethic when it came to what she viewed as boring or unnecessary. However, she never passed up an opportunity to teach her brothers about what she thought was fun and important, even when that meant taking the blame for the resulting mayhem.