Albus had luckly been able to curl the most vicious ideas that came from Andromeda Tonks, and some of the members of the Order hadn't been interested in the spell that the witch knew. It was a great lost for their ranks the deaths occurred, but Albus didn't think it was necesary that level of violence, something that most of his followers believed too. But not everyone had thought that, Alastor, Kingsley and Remus had join the view of the three sets of parents, and while they continued going to the usual Order meetings, they usually spend more time with the Weasleys, that had left the Order, Grangers and Tonks.
Severus, who was one of the most trusted followers of Tom, continued to pass information about the Dark Lord. Albus knew, thanks to him, that the Death Eaters were getting ready to comit a great scale attack, to announce the return of Voldemort and create panic. Albus knew that even if Severus attempted to postpone it it would still happend, and then the war would finally be in the open.
And they weren't ready to win it, the Order was fragmented, between those that followed his lead and those that prefered a more agressive method to defeact the Death Eaters. But that wasn't all, without Harry the profecy was now refering to Neville Longbottom, whose Grandmother was against letting the boy close to him. Even if he hadn't told the Order of the profecy most new that Harry was important to defeact Tom, they just didn't knew how much.
Once the Death Eaters made their first open attack, once there was blood on the street from inocent bystanders, Albus was sure that Andromeda's group would retail the attack. It would probably be efective, Tom's followers would probably be incapavitated, but he was sure that it would be their last attacks ever. He had heard from Alastor the kind of things that the group had achived, the curses that Andromeda wad teaching, how pranking toys were know letal weapons and if Alastor were to believe the Grangers were now great at firing diferent times of firearms.
At least, he thought, the Death Eaters that attacked the Ministry had all been sent discretly to Azkaban, where they were probably safer. Which meant less magical blood spilled and more people that he could redeem.
But now, Albus great worry was when and the Death Eaters' attack was going to happend. He knew that if they wanted to cause an impact, it could only somewhere with a lot of people at the same place and time. The most likely target was Diagon Alley, specially when the students went to buy their supplies for the school year. For that reason the anual lists had been sent at different times for every year, so not all students went to Diagon Alley in the same couple of days.
As weeks passes and students went to Diagon Alley and non of the Order members stationated there, to defend the people in case of attack, reported any attack or suspicious activity Albus grew worried. Each week a diferent year recieved their letters, and went to Diagon Alley without any problem.
By the time the last group of letters left the schools grounds, Albus had drawn the conclusion that if no attack happened that week, and Severus was sure that it would happen, the next posible target could be Kings Cross or the Hogwarts Express which left less opitions of defence.
Just in case that Tom decided to attack that week, Albus had left the school in Minerva's hands and had took position in the alley. If Tom were to attack, he would find a nasty surprise. But if he didn't attack then he would have to go back to planing. The train station was dificult to defend, there was just one way in and out if the floo was down and there was little to no space between the families. The Hogwarts express, brought a different problem, it wasn't static, there wasn't almost any competent adult to defend the train, and even if Order members followed the train by broom in case of an internal attack they could loss to much time gaining access. And there was a posibility that those weren't Tom's target, the path between train an castle was an option, or maybe a Hogsmade week but they would most likely be cancelled for security, the ministry was too well guarded now after the incident in the Department of Misteries, but maybe he could attack Diagon Alley some other time when Tom knew that he would be busy inside the castle.
The only thing that he could consider different for other years, was the less amount of students at the street and the goslip and rumor about Harry's death. The news had finally reached the Prophet at the middle of July, the reason of his dead hadn't been stated and Albus couldn't tell the public the truth. He couldn't tell that Harry had comit suicide instead of getting ready to battle Voldemort, it would only cause discouragement in the people that would think that if the Boy-who-lived couldn't stay and fight they surely would only die if they tried.
But there wasn't an attack that week, and the Hogwarts' students had been able to buy without any problem. And even if an attack would have happened he was sure that tne Weasley twins would made any attacker go to their hidden place, with what they had in their new and highly popular shop.
At the end of the week, Albus just went back to the castle to prepare the next Order meeting so the group could be informed on the next posible targets and discuss a defend plan.