You have quite a number of questions here!! Hopefully the next part of this chapter will clear them up for you, but just as a general thing: no, Voldemort cannot become a phoenix now that he is bonded with Abby's mother. Abby's mother and Abby are bonded in a more general sense simply because they are mother and daughter. That just comes with them being blood and both being phoenixes.

"Absolutely not!" Professor McGonagall said, taking a step towards my bed in a rather threatening manner. In the already tight and confined space her gesture made it feel even smaller.

"Now, now Minerva, she was merely asking. Yes, Abby, if you wanted to, you could form a bond with someone."

I nodded my head a couple of times slowly. "And what exactly does it mean, when you're bonded with someone?"

"It's a blood bond," said Snape, who up until this point had been completely silent. "Once you make the bond it cannot be undone. It takes a very powerful phoenix animagi to be able to make the bond...most die trying because the process and pain they go through is simply too much for the body to handle."

"I never knew my mother was that strong," I said, furrowing my brows.

"We believe that Voldemort has been strengthening her magically to ensure that she didn't die. I'm not sure your mother would have been strong enough if he hadn't provided some aid," said Dumbledore, slightly apologetically.

"So, basically this bond provides unlimited power to whoever the person bonds with?" I asked.

"It all depends...you see bonds, especially blood bonds like these, will vary in strength depending upon the connection between the animagi and the person they are bonding with. Given that your mother and Voldemort have a history, I suspect their bond will be quite strong."

"History? How much of a history do they have?"

"That is something for another time. Now, there is an important thing that you must know about the bond," said Dumbledore, taking hold of my hand. "When a phoenix animagi chooses to make a bond with a witch or wizard they lose their immortality."

"Immortality? But Professor, I'm not immortal."

"Yes, Abby, you are. When you are in your phoenix form."

"But not when I'm in my human form," I said, the confusion of it all beginning to weigh on me.

"I understand this is complex, and honestly there is still a bit of mystery surrounding it all. Because phoenixes are immortal and cannot be killed, that in turn means that you are immortal. However, your body will still age and progress like that of a person that is immortal. If you were to be hit with the killing curse right now, it would kill you, however if you were in your phoenix form, then you would merely burst into flames and be reborn from the ashes in the human form that you are now, which is a teenage girl."

"So, when you make a bond you lose your immortality?"

"Correct."

"But why?" I asked.

"Because when a phoenix animagi chooses to make a bond with a mortal they sacrifice their immortal elixir of life and pass it onto the person they've bonded with," said Snape before Dumbledore could respond.

My mouth fell open slightly. "So you mean Voldemort is immortal?"

"Not immortal. Look at it as your mother granting Voldemort an extra life. If someone were to go and kill Voldemort right now, he would not die, but instead your mother would die in his place."

I now understood why Dumbledore had taken my hand to share this bit of information. "So basically you're saying we can't kill Voldemort without killing my mother first."

Dumbledore gave me a solemn nod. "Now you understand why the bond is such an extraordinary act to perform. Phoenix animagis have the choice of living forever, even after their human bodies are no longer able to function. They can transform into the beautiful animal and live the life of a real phoenix for eternity. By creating this bond, they are giving that possibility up. Really they are choosing death."

"So even if the person they made the bond with dies a natural death..."

"The phoenix will still die in their place, but ultimately the natural death causes would probably still take the person's life in the long run."

I was quiet, trying to let all of this information process in my head. Here was my mother committing such an act that made it even harder to kill a nearly impossible wizard to kill. Dumbledore made a gesture for them to leave us be for a moment, and they excited, the silence of just Dumbledore and I behind the closed curtain making the air all the more suffocating.

"How is this happening?" I whispered to him.

"I do not know, but really, deep down, we knew that Voldemort would go to whatever lengths necessary to strengthen his chances against beating Harry."

I nodded slightly, not feeling much comfort by the words.

"But what gives us strength Abby is how heavily Voldemort holds things like prophecies and set-in-stone concepts to be true. Voldemort doubts the ability to defy things, he doubts circumstance, and that is where we can find the strength we need to beat him."

"What would happen if I made the bond with Harry?"

Dumbledore let out a long exhale. "Honestly, I do not know that it would help Harry. Perhaps it would give him a back up life, like in those silly games muggles play, but ultimately you are of much more use to him as you are now than bonded with him."

"But if it turned out to be necessary...could I survive it?"

"That no one has an answer for. I believe you and Harry have a remarkable bond naturally, unlike any other I have seen before. Maybe that would be enough, or maybe you are strong enough to survive it on your own. Either way, it is too hard to say, and truly I do not think we are in a desperate enough situation for you to be considering such things."

I gave a little nod of the head. "So where do we go from here?" I asked.

"These events," said Dumbledore, looking at me from over his spectacles, "have even further intrigued my interest. You see I believe you can only understand a man if you understand his past. I would like for you, Harry, and I to explore Voldemort's past...to really dig down and study it. Perhaps through this I will find the answers that I am looking for."

"And what answers are those?" I asked.

"In time, all in good time. Meet me tomorrow evening with Harry in my office. There is something I would like the two of you to see."

With that Dumbledore was out of the chair and exiting the curtain, leaving me no time to ask questions or protest. I realized that my shoulders had been tensed the entire time, and that now that I was alone I could finally relax them. I turned my head sideways so I could look out the window that was enclosed in the curtained area with me and closed my eyes. In order to kill Voldemort I would have to watch my mother die, or in fact kill her myself. How does a child knowingly support the death of their mother? The death of the woman that brought them into the world?

I let the warm tears stream down my face without any attempts to stop them. Decisions were what made us, and more often than not these decisions were hard.