I was just writing somewhere else about King's Cross, and it got me thinking... and no, I don't think Harry is dead, due to obvious crucifixion symbolism.
For a god, or a demi-god, or a hero, or a Jedi, or a superhero to (literally or metaphorically) crucify themselves and hence come back stronger is nothing new. Odin crucified himself on the 'world tree' Yggdrasil for 9 days. (Aside: As Neil so presciently notes in The Young Ones, how do you get the last nail in?).
The world tree is a tree from which the 9 layers of the cosmas hung in Norse mythology - it was the spine, the centre of their universe, both in the world, and outside of time.
After his self sacrifice, Odin returned stronger, with the gift of runes.
Jesus Christ was a God made flesh. He was a God, and thus immortal; but he was in a mortal frame, and thus could die. He was sacrificed at the full moon in spring - thus, at the moment of sunset, the sun (symbolising eternity) and the full moon (symbolising mortality) were both in the sky. He was hung on a cross, an axis, of both world, temporal and eternal. Medieval maps show Jeruselum as the centre of the world - with Golgotha as the absolute centre. Older drawings show the cross as a tree growing from the piece of 'apple' stuck in Adam's throat.
The cross, I am suggesting, is a symbol of the centre of all things, where the eternal meets the temporal, God meets man, life and death are parts of the same force. Harry, master of the Eldar wand, the Resurrection Stone, and the Cloak of Invisibility, sacrificed himself - a symbolic crucifixion - after proving himself an equal, or greater than, the Dark Lord. He was a type of warrior king, the leader of an army, a figure of legend, his coming was foretold by the prophets. He would slay the tenacious tyrant, and bring forth an era of peace. Thus, after his sacrifice, he was on (in) The King's Cross.
Now, the World Tree, or the cross, is the symbolic meeting place of the worlds. Kings Cross is where the Muggle World meets the world of Hogwarts. It is where Harry is neither alive nor dead. Voldemort, not friend nor foe. Dumbledore, an echo, a thought, a memory, an anthropomorphic personification of unconscious knowledge or whatever - it doesn't matter. This is the place where opposites are equal.
So, because of this crucifixion symbolism, I don't think Harry is dead, but like Odin after 9 days, like Jesus after 3, like the moon after 3, like Spiderman in Spiderman 2 after he was crucified on that train, Harry would come back and complete his mission.
