Sim, a pedra funciona, não apenas como o criador / usuário gostaria.
Citação do DH:
Meanwhile, the second brother journeyed to his own home, where he lived alone. Here he took out the stone that had the power to recall the dead, and turned it thrice in his hand. To his amazement and his delight, the figure of the girl he had once hoped to marry, before her untimely death, appeared at once before him.
Yet she was sad and cold, separated from him as by a veil. Though she had returned to the mortal world, she did not truly belong there and suffered. Finally the second brother, driven mad with hopeless longing, killed himself so as truly to join her.
And so Death took the second brother for his own. - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter Twenty-One
Parece a partir deste texto que um corpo e uma alma são trazidos de volta, no entanto, há interação limitada em que o usuário da pedra pode ter com a pessoa. Além disso, a pessoa uma vez morta vai querer voltar para a vida após a morte porque é onde eles pertencem e são mais felizes.