Harry Potter

Diane Duane's "So you want to be a wizard?" series makes almost the exact opposite in creative choices as Rowling does for Harry Potter:

• female protagonist with male best friend and partner-in-training
• becoming a wizard is something that you choose, not something you are born into
• being a wizard means upholding a certain responsibility towards the rest of the world, specifically that of slowing the progression of entropy and of the universe reaching heat death
• as part of their initiation, each wizard personally confronts and is tempted by an embodiment of entropy - a sort of reverse pact-with-the-fel
• Wizards learn their magic through their personal magic guide book, not some boarding school. The book automatically updates it's content according to what the wizard is currently interested in learning about.
• magic is not incompatible with technology. although the main character is more into "nature" magic at the start of the series, her best friend is very mechanically inclined and his brand of magic follows suit. There is also a young wizard-in-training in a later book whose "personal magic guide book" takes the form of a laptop.

The author seems to have pretty decent views. Notably, she heavily rewrote one of the books that features an autistic wizard kid after getting feedback on how ablist she had written it the first time. (Which means if you're interested in picking them up, do really try to get a more recent printing).

There's also a book in the series that deals with having a parent losing the battle against cancer.

All in all, while they never gave me similar feelings of whimsy and quirk as Harry Potter, I loved these books just as deeply while growing up.