  Parafermions are generalizations of Majorana fermions that may appear in
interacting topological systems. They are known to be powerful building blocks
of topological quantum computers. Existing proposals for realizations of
parafermions typically rely on strong electronic correlations which are hard to
achieve in the laboratory. We identify a novel physical system in which
parafermions generically develop. It is based on a quantum point contact formed
by the helical edge states of a quantum spin Hall insulator in vicinity to an
ordinary $s$-wave superconductor. Interestingly, our analysis suggests that
$\mathbb{Z}_4$ parafermions are emerging bound states in this setup -- even in
the {\it weakly interacting} regime.
