A Harry Potter AU where Hogwarts is a boarding school for the fine arts.
Purebloods are local attendees, while Muggleborns are people who attend from very far away. Half-bloods tend to be somewhere inbetween. Tom Riddle is an angry ex-student who has made a relatively large following of other locals who believe that the school accepting non-local students is detrimental to the benefit of the surrounding area. Dumbledore is the elderly headmaster, as per usual. Snape is an ill-mannered and gloomy baking teacher, who generally acts as a regulator between Riddle and Dumbledor, due to having the skill of being able to get on anyones good side, generally by sucking up. This also gives him a rather bad reputation.
Transfiguration is sculpting, a subject Harry's father was ironically good at. Charms is general arts like sketching and painting and such. Potions is baking and cooking. Astronomy is astrology. Herbology deals with things such as gardening. Care of Magical Creatures is, of course, a class on the care of animals, with some general health thrown in. Arithmacy is math, of course, but a rather more open-ended and Khan-esque manner of class. History of Magic is a history course, naturally. Muggle Studies is a sort of 'people study', involving both anatomy and regular people-watching field trips. Divination is a creative writing and english class, often serving tea brewed by Trewlany, and frequently substituted by her almost-equally-airheaded, wheelchair-bound boyfriend Firenze. Ancient Runes is a language study class, and tends to cover all the languages. Defense Against the Dark Arts is a musical theatre class because irony and AVPM. The cool teachers in this class tend to help out a lot in other subjects and are the normal operators of the Dueling Club, now a club for martial arts and such. The ministry of magic is the school board. The school houses are still a thing, though the students are sorted somewhat differently. It's still by the Sorting Hat, but he isn't really a hat anymore, though he is still older than Dumbledore and often petitions the Headmaster to create a more official choir and band.
Lily and James Potter-Evans were vapid supporters and close friends to the school, and their tragic deaths in a car accident are occasionally speculated privately to be more than an accident. Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew went on an investigation of the so-called accident, which led them abroad. Peter returned alone, claiming that Sirius had dissapeared among other things.
Remus, an oft-ill man, was denied full guardianship of Harry on account of his illnesses, and was only allowed to take Harry for about a Month per year. The Dursleys are just as intolerant and abusive as in the past, and Remus had frequently started and lost custodial battles with them up until Sirius's return during Harry's third year, which marked the revelation of a very dark movement happening underground, which targeted Hogwarts as an obstacle in the way.
There are many story parallels withing the AU, such as Sirius taking the group on a mystery-solving several-days-long roadtrip during fifth year, or the veteran Alastor Moody being kidnapped by an insane cultist in fourth year, and so on. Tom Riddle's interference with the school on both public and private fronts tends to create very strange mishaps around the school, and has been vengefully using executive power to consecutively fire every DADA teacher for the last fourty years.
Quidditch is a recent sport that was created in the same art community that Hogwarts supports. It is very elaborate and silly.
Snape is somewhat less malicious, but not all that much less malicious, because how do you make cooking intimidating? You act like chef Ramsey, actually, and that's what he does. It scares the students, but it is actually really cool when he starts in on someone else. Which is rare, but still.
House elf characters are all represented by various archetypes and characters connected by a willingness to perform cheap work.
Tom Riddle is publicly opposing the school, yes, but is privately kind of the leader of a large cult preaching ideals very similar to the books, where he is known as, of course, Lord Voldemort. He is responsible for the murder of the Potter-Evans, and planted a false trail for Sirius to follow. Draco doesn't know of this initially, and due to a slightly different upbringing due to the AU ends up with an earlier heel-face-turn, along with Peter eventually. Snape finding out about the cult is what triggers the increasingly terrifying events during Harry's time at school.