Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the third in the "Harry Potter" series. The book follows Harry Potter, a young wizard, in his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Along with friends Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry investigates Sirius Black, an escaped prisoner from Azkaban who they believe is one of Lord Voldemort's old allies. The book was published in the United Kingdom on 8 July 1999 by Bloomsbury and in the United States on 8
Religious debates over the Harry Potter series LaVaque-Manty of the liberal website Left2Right notes, "Religion plays no role in the books. There are no churches, no other religious institutions, nobody prays or meditates, and even funerals are non-religious affairs." When considering the role of religion within "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", Christopher Hitchens observed the apparent secularism in the novel, stating that the characters of Harry and Hermione possess certain moral virtues while also expressing an ignorance of Christian ideas. In an article written for "Time" magazine before the publication of the seventh and final book in the series entitled "Who Dies in Harry Potter? God,"