I don't read fanfiction for a retelling of the canon. The canon is set by the original author, in the case of HP, JK Rowling set her canon. Everyone writing fanfiction by definition writes AU/AR. That said, the sorting of Harry as a divergence point often bothers me because it tends to go into bash Gryff or Weasley territory. Some do not but many do and honestly the other house story is more than a bit cliche since the fandom has been around for awhile, and has explored it in fanfiction extensively.

But I do like a good AU and some have been excellent. But you have to wade through a VAST amount of garbage to find the gems.