#don't really have time to give this the textually-supported analysis it deserves but like... yeah.

[firendgold]

Harry, Albus and King's Cross

I've seen a lot of fanfics over the years that (when sending Harry temporarily to the afterlife) treat Dumbledore's appearance at King's Cross as an error, or something that The Fandom As A Whole Thinks Is Bad. Not only is the latter a false idea (hi, meet me. I'm still in the fandom for some godforsaken reason lol), but it also kind of rubs me the wrong way to see fanfic-AU!Harry meet instead with Lily (whom he doesn't know and whose accurate shade he probably wouldn't be able to summon to the in-between), Sirius (who is the best alternate contender but isn't the loss weighing most heavily on Harry in DH), Remus (...lol. nah), Death itself (personifying a metaphysical concept to give it more gravity or screentime is a departure from the themes of the series, fight me) or someone/something else.

It was always going to be Albus who met Harry. Not because he's a hallucination. Not because he's the personification of Death or whatever. (Those two ideas are debatable and could be argued, but they're not the point. That's not why.) The why is because Albus Dumbledore is who Harry had come to rely on the most over the entire series. Before Sirius. In spite of Remus. Before his Head of House. Over the flaky government. Albus was Harry's mentor and one of Harry's many flawed father-figures; he was the most enduring person present in Harry's adolescence; and he was the person whose guidance Harry sought almost constantly over the entire final book when he couldn't get it anymore.

A good portion of Harry's character is about the losses he experienced before he was ever aware of them, and about the losses he experiences once he is aware of who he is and what he must do. Albus' loss slots neatly into the latter category and gives us a front-row seat to how Harry grapples with losing someone so important to him.

(Emphasis on "front-row seat" because for some reason, That Woman decided to have Harry insta-heal from losing Sirius in HBP with only the briefest single-sentence reference to off-screen grieving for a few weeks. Like. I realize he only knew Sirius for 2.5 years, but Harry loved him, JKR. What the fuck?)

But yeah. Tangents aside, it was always going to be Albus who met Harry in the fake King's Cross. Sirius died in an inexplicable way which had to be explained both to the readers and to Harry (recall Harry saying "He's only just gone through!" because he thinks the Veil is a curtain, and Remus having to be the one who says "There's nothing you can do, Harry... nothing... he's gone." And although I wasn't active in the fandom then, others can co-sign that there were LOTS of "Sirius Lived/Sirius Will Come Back!" conspiracy theories IRL following the release of book 5). By contrast, Harry watched Albus die. He knew what happened and how irrevocable it was from the moment it occurred.

Most of Harry's conflict and disillusionment with Albus in the final book is the equivalent of a pressure cooker, building until the "explosion" of numb betrayal that happens in The Prince's Tale and is then promptly reversed in King's Cross. Throughout Deathly Hallows, it is Dumbledore's absence which frustrates Harry, confuses him, unmoors him. Dumbledore's final return to Harry in chapter 35 is the circle closed; the wound cauterized. Explanations are finally had; information is finally available to Harry, who thrives on being informed so he can make the decisions which most align with his character. Once he has this information (information he could only have had confirmed from someone actually crossing from the land of Death to meet with him), once he understands that Dumbledore wanted him to live but made the painful choice to lead him to Death in the name of destroying Voldemort, Harry makes the choice to forgive Dumbledore for his part in the pain and misunderstandings that have plagued his life.

In order to have someone else meet Harry at the crossroads between living and dying, you have to basically rewrite not only the end of Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows, but also a significant portion of every other book. If it's an AU, have at—I might even give it a read. For meta discussions though? I say a third time: Albus was always going to be the one waiting for Harry at King's Cross.